Searching - I just don't get it

[Doctordestiny]

Clearly I don't understand the search function on this site.

Say I want to find a post made in the thread I've a car salesman ask me anything. If I do an advanced search and type I'm a car salesman as the keywords and type a username, nothing comes up. The username I used has posted in that thread. I tried putting the keywords in quote marks - nothing.

What am I doing wrong? Do instructions exist for using the search function. Can someone tell me briefly how to do this? In my example, do I click on show threads or show posts?

I'm a computer idiot so please don't judge me.

[Titan]

I just tried it. I typed car salesman and it came up as the 3rd or 4th post.

Are you spelling it right?

The show thread will take you to threads that reference the words and the show post will show the posts that reference it, I think.

[Titan]

Also, there is a Search box near the top and there is a search this thread option. Be sure to use the top one.

[ken0042]

Also, keep in mind you are only searching the one word: salesman

The search will even tell you: The following words are either very common, too long, or too short and were not included in your search: I'm, a, car

[Rathji]

However if you surround your string with quotes, " I'm a car salesman " it will include all the smaller words are part of the larger string.

[Jedi Ninja]

The weirdness happens if you go into Advanced Search and select "Search Titles Only." Then the word salesman only returns a few hits, not including the above mentioned thread.

I just realized that it's probably searching the post title and not the thread title.

[Shazam]

When you type in keywords and a name, it looks only for posts by that user that have those keywords.

[Azure]

Also, IIRC you have to have at least 4 letters per word, right?

So if your word is only 3 letters long, add a '%' at the end to bump it up to 4 letters.

Like searching with Google, the more words, the broader the result. Usually its a good idea to search using keywords, and not general phrases like 'this'....or 'that'....'us' 'im'....etc, etc.

[FlamingStuffedTiger]

Yea, I'm going to revive this old thread here because I kind of agree with the OP here. Often, I'm just not getting the hits that I want with the search function here for some reason. In fact, I'm having way more success using Google like so.

Am I just not using the search function correctly or something?

[Rathji]

I agree it is kinda painful. You can go a google search of CP if you want.

I forget the exact syntax but it is something like this:

"site:forum.calgarypuck.com <your search here>"

Someone can correct me if I am wrong

[photon]

Yeah search is something of a sore point for vBulletin. It's not that great and it's heavy on the database, while some people have added Sphinx to their sites with great success, far faster and far better results. But for some reason the vBulletin creators won't incorporate it into the software, even as an option, I think because they feel it's too complex and vBulletin likes to target the lowest common denominator installs I guess.

Once we move over to the new server and new software, I might look at that.. or having a specific Google search space, I've seen that on some vBulletin forums as well.

[FlamingStuffedTiger]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I agree it is kinda painful. You can go a google search of CP if you want.

I forget the exact syntax but it is something like this:

"site:forum.calgarypuck.com <your search here>"

Someone can correct me if I am wrong

Yea, that looks right. I'm just a little surprised that it seems to return search results a little bit better than CP's built-in search function for me. Maybe I'm just imagining things...

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by photon

Yeah search is something of a sore point for vBulletin. It's not that great and it's heavy on the database, while some people have added Sphinx to their sites with great success, far faster and far better results. But for some reason the vBulletin creators won't incorporate it into the software, even as an option, I think because they feel it's too complex and vBulletin likes to target the lowest common denominator installs I guess.

Once we move over to the new server and new software, I might look at that.. or having a specific Google search space, I've seen that on some vBulletin forums as well.

If there was a poll for most wanted feature of CalgaryPuck, I think the only thing that would beat out a custom google search would be a on demand pop up of Kiira Korpi.

I could be wrong though.