captaincrunch Posted February 16, 2011 Posted February 16, 2011 Who's idea was it to limit search words to at least 4? How do you search for information regarding "oil", or "air" when it won't let you use a 3-lettered word?
1990LS400 Posted February 17, 2011 Posted February 17, 2011 I'm not defending this forum but a minimum search string is common on the forums I use - automotive and otherwise. The owner of this forum for a while used Google search to allow 3-character string searches but it had far more drawbacks than the search provided by the forum software. Personally, I great appreciate the forum owner abandoning the Google search and restoring to OEM search. Thanks Steve!
pj8708 Posted February 17, 2011 Posted February 17, 2011 I'm not defending this forum but a minimum search string is common on the forums I use - automotive and otherwise. The owner of this forum for a while used Google search to allow 3-character string searches but it had far more drawbacks than the search provided by the forum software. Personally, I great appreciate the forum owner abandoning the Google search and restoring to OEM search. Thanks Steve! How do you then search for a topic such as "oil" or "gas"? Thanks. Paul
1990LS400 Posted February 17, 2011 Posted February 17, 2011 How do you then search for a topic such as "oil" or "gas"? Thanks. Paul You can't. You search for something else that might be in the threads you are looking for such as "gasoline" or "change" (as in "oil change") -- anything with four or more characters. You can also search for threads containing multiple strings, e.g. +gasoline +change My understanding is that purpose of requiring longer search strings is to improve website performance and limit search results to a manageable amount. If for example, one could search for 2-character strings, every thread post containing a word with those two characters would be returned.
pj8708 Posted February 17, 2011 Posted February 17, 2011 How do you then search for a topic such as "oil" or "gas"? Thanks. Paul You can't. You search for something else that might be in the threads you are looking for such as "gasoline" or "change" (as in "oil change") -- anything with four or more characters. You can also search for threads containing multiple strings, e.g. +gasoline +change My understanding is that purpose of requiring longer search strings is to improve website performance and limit search results to a manageable amount. If for example, one could search for 2-character strings, every thread post containing a word with those two characters would be returned. Makes sense. Thanks Jim.
LEXIRX330 Posted February 17, 2011 Posted February 17, 2011 How do you then search for a topic such as "oil" or "gas"? Thanks. Paul You can't. You search for something else that might be in the threads you are looking for such as "gasoline" or "change" (as in "oil change") -- anything with four or more characters. You can also search for threads containing multiple strings, e.g. +gasoline +change My understanding is that purpose of requiring longer search strings is to improve website performance and limit search results to a manageable amount. If for example, one could search for 2-character strings, every thread post containing a word with those two characters would be returned. Makes sense. Thanks Jim. or lubricants! And...gasoline! I've got to stop!
shariebeth Posted May 2, 2011 Posted May 2, 2011 I've had luck including 3 letter words in phrases and putting the phrase in quotes: "air filter" "oil change" Has any admin tried reducing the minimum to 3 and monitored the results? I run another forum and we had the same problem, including the well deserved complaints! ;) The default was 4 I believe. We set it down to a 3 letter word minimum and have had no problems. This was within the forum search, no Google required. There should be a setting for this without needing Google Search.
Steve Posted May 4, 2011 Posted May 4, 2011 On the top of the forums, thre is a search box, next to the search box you should see a drop down, select google search and it will search google for this site only. That will allow you to do a 3 letter search.
Steve Posted June 19, 2012 Posted June 19, 2012 Just to let you know we have installed a new search using Sphinx and you can now do 2 letter searches. So all is now well :)
1990LS400 Posted June 19, 2012 Posted June 19, 2012 Thanks for the update on the search. As I think I reported some months ago, search results do not display in a usable format properly on my Windows 7 64-bit, Internet Explorer 9 system. I have had this system since last summer and the search results page on this forum is, from what I remember, the only one that has not displayed properly. Here is an example of what is returned when I search on a literal and my member name in the LS forum.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now