Search function

[SCRUB HIKER]

Just saw that the first two links in my earlier post no longer work; they must have timed out.

[mwhoyle]

Go to Advance Search option
Click on the tab Searchg Single Content Type
Type in the search phrase you want
Pick all the option you want to include
Now, toward the bottom in the Show Resuslts As option pick POSTS.

ATTroll, I've been having difficulty with search, too. I did as you suggest and it seems to just return ALL the threads as matches. (takes 30 or 40 seconds to run) It does so with both quick and advanced search.

Appreciate the help.

[attroll]

Could you tell me what you are searching for and the search phrase you are using. That would help me help you or figure out if there is a problem.
If you would rather no post it here, you can send it to me in a private message.

[thethinker]

attroll, I've had this issue before as well. A good example is two days ago i searched for: "z-packs blast". The search results were an exact match to what I could have and did find if I had hit the tab "What's New" at the top of the page.
I kind of look over the matter now as there seems to be no pattern to it. Sometimes it happens, but for the most part it doesn't. It's been like that for as long as I can remember. Today I typed "z-packs blast" and the search result was successful. No clearing of caches or anything different on my part. It just happens.

[theoilman]

When I want to search the forum, I use Google's site search syntax. Type your search inquiry into Google followed by site:whiteblaze.net/forum.

Here's a comparison of the search results:

1) Searching "bear bag hanging" WITHOUT quotation marks using the WhiteBlaze site-search function.
2) Searching "bear bag hanging" WITH quotation marks using the WhiteBlaze site-search function.
3) Searching "bear bag hanging site:whiteblaze.net/forum" with no quotation marks on Google.

The Google search results are massively more helpful than the ones from the WhiteBlaze site-search. I don't know a thing about programming or why this would be, but hopefully that helps people in the future.

+1
I also find whiteblaze search function at best "quirky". It seems to work best if the first post of a thread gets entered with "tags" posted.

But the best search that works dependably is the google search with the site:whiteblaze.net (or site=whiteblaze.net) included in the string.

[attroll]

I see what your saying. I think the problem lies in the second word of you search string, "bag". WhiteBlaze does not index any words three characters or lower. The reason being is there are so many words that are common three letters words such as, the, can, we, us, to, go, sat, for, cat, hat, mat and so on. You will find that many web sites do the same thing. We are not as large as Google nor do we have the hardware they have to afford to do this.

What it is doing is skipping over the three letter word and choosing the other two words looking for a match.

I hope this explains it.

[SCRUB HIKER]

So I just searched "bear hanging" both with and without quotation marks using Whiteblaze's function and on each one, the results were identical. The third result for each was the "best waterproof iPhone case" thread, in which someone had used the word "bear" once in an irrelevant context.

I think the lack of a user-friendly search function is a major failing of this site. We (regular users) complain about repeat topics, but don't you think people would stop asking about bear bags and whether cheese keeps if searching "bear bag hanging" and "does cheese keep" did not both have Hikerboy's Cyber Cafe as the number one search result? There is a great wealth of useful information on this site, it's as good as nonexistent if it's impossible to find.

You say Whiteblaze doesn't have Google's hardware ... well, Google lets websites use their hardware (for a price): http://www.google.com/enterprise/sea...ducts_gss.html. Just a suggestion. And before anyone accuses me of suggesting that WhiteBlaze spend money without me donating any, I plan to become a donating member soon.