Tricky search engine techniques on this forum...

This is to hopefully help users at this point, to be able to more effectively utilize the forum's search engine and to free up Tom D. from answering already answered questions/information requests.

Phorum software has a weird way of searching (in my opinion). Example as follows:

Clicking on the 'Advanced' link of the 'Search' icon, type in F-75 or F75, select 'exact phrase', select 'all dates'. And you come up with 'no search results'.
Type in F-75* or F75* (include asterisk) and you get the appropriate search results. Apparently, search terms with a low volume of letters/characters requires the asterisk. However here is the weird part. The term F-75 has 4 characters but Will Not produce search results. F75*, which has 4 characters will produce results. So, what are the minimum number or type of characters required, before having to use the asterisk?
Also, FMall uses the 'Phorum' software, same as Tom's does. They have a 'upload file' icon when creating a new message. Where is ours??

I understand the reason for the asterisk, which is to keep the server from being overloaded by simple one or two character based searches. But at this point, how to correctly do a search for low character search terms, doesn't follow a known defined procedure (my opinion).

Perhaps a sticky in regards to how 'Phorum' institutes searches should be the first sticky, if Tom D. consents to using stickys.

This post is not a complaint, simply a effort to make things easier for Tom D.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2011 06:32AM by TerraDigger.

I don't remember where I saw this, but I seem to remember that hyphens are seen as a space by some search engines, and the asterisk is seen as a wildcard. Thus, F-75 is seen as F 75, a one-letter word followed by a two-number word. However, F75* is seen as a four character word (sometimes the minimum number of letters allowed for some search engines). Finally, I think that wildcard means that the asterisk can be any letter, number, symbol or even a blank space.

But alot of users will not realize this when they try to do a search here.....ergo...............the post. Many low character detector models/terms are going to be searched by name........F75, F70, T2, G2, CZ3, VDI etc........hopefully this may assist in providing less frustration and questions.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2011 07:10AM by TerraDigger.

that your bring this subject up is a terrific idea. I'm sure many others can provide forum search techniques that go far beyond my knowledge. There sure are a lot of very knowledgable people who comment on this site, and hopefully your starting this subject will lead to many helpful search engine hints we can all use to mine the wealth of information here, without using Tom's time.

Maybe the search ideas everybody submits can be put in a permanent "Search Help" file on this site, so we can all access it at any time in the future. Anything us regular visitors can do to make searching it more effective serves our whole community.

Thank you for thinking to bring this subject up. It could well turn out to be one of the most helpful ideas anyone could have put forward.

I pretty much use google search when after specfic information on forums where the native search does not give me the results I'm after.

It's easy to use once you get the hang of it. simply type your search terms/keywords in the google search bar followed by a space then "site:" then the forums address

Example: F-75 5 inch coil(sp)site:dankowskidetectors.com gives these results

[www.google.com]

If you want to narrow the date range click the advance search button on the displayed page.

another example f-75 "5 inch coil" site:findmall.com

[www.google.com]

In this example putting asterisks around "5 inch coil" give results with that exact term only.

Also the results are from google's cache of the site so newer posts of a few days old may not show up.

Hope this helps

Tom Z



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2011 09:53AM by Jackpine.

Just simply be more complete in your search by including the maker of the detector along with the model, "Fisher F-75", etc.

Tri

The problem with using a search term like....Fisher F-75.....is that it will bring up 206 posts, but most of them are not related to the F-75. The majority of the resulting posts will be specific to the term 'Fisher' which is not what the user is really looking for. But if a person enters F-75* and uses the other parameters I outlined in my original post, the user gets more specific posts that have F-75 in them. It saves having to wade though 206 posts. Just my opinion on a more effective search technique.

I have not tried the asterisk thing , however I do believe that if ALL of us who post would be more specific in the title of our post instead of putting inane titles such as "hey guess what" , we also might be more pleased with our search results. I also posted about this very thing last year. It may be helpful. [www.dankowskidetectors.com]

Tri

That was funny.........

THANK YOU

THANK YOU!!!!

I was unaware one could do that, so thank you for that really helpful tip.

By the way, in the second to last sentence of your post where you say: asterisks around "5 inch coil", I assume you meant to say quotation marks around "5 inch coil"?

tnanks very helpful:probally shouldnt have done that as now the knowledge is going to flow! WATCH your tail feathers

Good post and great idea. That is going to help all of us. Thank you Terradigger. John

thanx 2 Terra and Jackpine and of course Nasa Tom and Wild Wally keep on keeping on HH rr7

Thanks for the info. much appreciated.

Another forum I use has a hilarious 'filter' in it's search function that ignores common words. Example :search for 'gold silver' produces the message: '"The following common words have been ignored in your search - gold silver". Fantastic.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/27/2012 10:18PM by Pimento.

Heck I do it the easy way no matter what I am searching for.....Just ask the missus and voila all the info I need..

Guess there are people that use computers and well knowlegable people who use computers...Still nice to kick around but aint going to fix what broke as it saves me time and aggravation...

Thought I would bring this useful post for any new member's and to try and drop the spammers!