searching for exact phrases/strings

asiddens · n00b Joined: 29 Aug 2003 Posts: 31

I haven't used the forums for a while, but there seems to have been a major change. Search results are no longer relevant at all.

The main problem seems to be that searches simply search for each of the individual words in the search string disregarding order. Normally priority should be given to exact matches (meaning same word order). However, this seems not to be the case.

What makes it even worse is that it seems like there's no way to force it to search for an exact string. Enclosing the search string in single or double quotes has no affect on the results. Let me use some examples to show the extreme absurdity of the current search feature.

I wanted to search for "failed cache update". The first resulting thread contained the word "cache" one single time in the whole entire freaking thread! The words "failed" and "update" were not used at all! Something tells me there's something seriously wrong with that. If I enclose the string in quotes, I get the exact same damn thread as my first result, and all the the subsequent threads are the exact same as well.

I could go on with other examples, but I think this is enough to communicate my problem and my extreme frustration at the sheer absurdity of the search feature in its current state.

Edit: And yes I also tried "failed AND cache AND update", and it still had no affect on the results.

Also, another major problem is that highlighting of searched for terms isn't working.

nightm4re · Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 11:34 pm Post subject:

are you talking about the quick search box, or the actual search page? if the first, try the second, it's got a lot of stuff in it to try.
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asiddens · n00b Joined: 29 Aug 2003 Posts: 31

Yeah, I've looked at it. It has no options that help.

lookinin · Guru Joined: 21 Jan 2005 Posts: 486

As John-Boy was kind enough to point out to me the other day:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=2019613#2019613

You can use google and search only the gentoo web site:

masseya · Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:42 pm Post subject:

There are a few tips here, but it sounds like you already knew about those. We're working on getting more google-friendly URLs in the future though, so perhaps google would be the way to go.
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nibblebot · Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2005 4:40 pm Post subject: search phrases?

Why can't I search for phrases? For example, if I click on the search link and type in "free software" and change the forum to games and the results to posts, none of the posts have "free software" (minues the quotes) as a phrase written in the results. How do I achieve this? All I'm trying to do is a search that works like google search phrase. Any suggestions?

kallamej · Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2005 9:28 pm Post subject: Re: search phrases?

Merged this one here.

hvengel · Guru Joined: 19 Sep 2004 Posts: 515

avx · Advocate Joined: 21 Jun 2004 Posts: 2152

bunder · Bodhisattva Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 5934

look, the long and the short of it is, nobody cared about v3, and nobody important cared about google. i tried helping you all, and got nothing but endless frustration.

until things get to the point where infra and the remaining forums team get their act into gear, you're going to be stuck with crap. i quit and built my own forum instead.

not that i'm staging a political coup, but you're more than welcome to use my forum, with both a working search (within phpBB's REAL design, of course, none of this stoplist crap), and a working google search.

sorry.

ps: this should be merged with the many "where is google" and "fgo search sucks" threads.
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