Why is the search feature so bad!

[TT350chevelle]

Does anybody have any hints on how to make the search function useful? I have tried searching using AND, (),+, or, and still cannot return any matches for BOOST CONTROL. I visit alot of forums and the phpBB forums are the worst for searches, does anybody have any hints?

We have a ton of info in the archives but it's almost impossible to retrieve, this is extremely frustrating and cannot help anybody, especially newbies trying to find some answers.

Brad J.

[jsmcortina]

I agree and wish I knew what needed to be done to fix it.

James

[Poolside]

Use Google. Precede your boolean search terms with site:msextra.com

Example:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=si ... gle+Search

- Jim

[TT350chevelle]

Thanks Jim, but google doesn't seem to work very well either, it appears to ignore the words in the topic of each post. On page 2 of the MS1/Extra specific (http://www.msextra.com/viewforum.php?f=4&start=30) section there is a post with the topic "Alternative to IRLZ44 - boost control " and this post does not show up in the search results, a few more tests with other known topics have the same result.... no match

Brad J.

[Poolside]

I see what you mean, Brad. Just to see what'd happen, I clicked the link on the bottom of the Google results page "repeat the search with the omitted results included." More topic results, but not the topic you listed.

Maybe the admin has somehow dissuaded the Google bot from taking snapshots? Or maybe phpBB stores pages in a cryptic format that the bot cannot read.

In a php search... +boost +control ...up comes the following: "The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: boost control." The phpBB admin search controls can have blacklisted words. Maybe that's what it is.

- Jim

[TT350chevelle]

Makes sense to me, the search feature seems to work at msefi.com so it must be something were doing wrong here or maybe some settings need to be changed ? Unfortunately all I can do is complain about it as I just don't know enough to offer any help

Brad J.

[jsmcortina]

robots.txt is setup to block all access to msextra.com - so Google shouldn't be seeing it at all.

I _thought_ that this was to keep network traffic to a sensible level, but I'll ask the top level admins.

James

[kholman]

The settings have been changed for the search and the search index has been rebuilt. Hopefully you will see some improvement now.

[TT350chevelle]

The settings have been changed for the search and the search index has been rebuilt. Hopefully you will see some improvement now.

I still cannot get any results for +boost +control.........

Brad J.

[kholman]

I still cannot get any results for +boost +control.........

Made another change and rebuilt the search index again (it takes a while when you set it to index ALL words) and got these results:

Search found 1064 matches: +boost +control

HTH

[TT350chevelle]

Ahhhh.... thats better! .. a couple tweaks in the advanced settings and I'm getting good results to browse through... Thanks!

Brad J.