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Why does the forum search not work well for me?


Mark Orusa

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I wasn't sure if here or "Post to the host" was the right place to post this...

Many people wisely recommend using this forum's search feature before posting, but I found it to be less than helpful. It often does not return results, or returns very few even when searching for common words.

For example, I was just reading in which page__view__findpost__p__117208 contains the words "SM58" and "Alexa". So I tried searching for "SM58 Alexa" without any quotes and it returned zero results. Even a simple searches for "schoeps mic" only returns 154 posts (not just threads) and "schoeps condenser" 0 results. contains all three words as typed and as part of another word, like mics and microphones. I know that these words have been used together in other posts. I also tried the advanced search to verify that it searches "title and content" in "Forums".

I've learned that using Google produces much better results. For example, googling "site:jwsoundgroup.net schoeps mic" produces 2,020 results, "site:jwsoundgroup.net schoeps condenser" 182 results. Is there a reason why this forum's search feature doesn't work well? Is there a trick I don't know about? I've had decent results with other forums' searches.

Mark O.

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Just type your keywords, followed by "jwsoundgroup".

Prepending "site:jwsoundgroup.net" to your searches will constrain google to this site.

I can run searches against a database that I programmed and it will return the expected results. I don't know why the search on this forum software won't.

Mark O.

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I always find myself using google to search as well. Mostly because I can't search 3 letter words using the forums search engine. And we know how many specific term's and products are no more than 3 letters :(

Edit: never mind I just tried using the search function and I can search 3 letter words, has this been changed recently? I could swear...

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I don't know why the search on this forum software won't.

Mark O.

The Search routines have never worked well. We did make some changes to provide for 3 letter searches and some things got a little better. I evaluated about 7 different forum software platforms before deciding on Invision Power Board for this site. I am very pleased I made that decision and I think the fact that we are not running vBulletin or phpBB or any of the other most common forums, has made this forum experience a better one for all of us... except for SEARCH. I am not a programmer (no kidding) and I am not able to do much about the search features as presently programmed by IPBoard software development. The IPBoard people do release updates and after an evaluation period I generally update the site and see improvements in certain areas.

For now we must just live with the site based search as it is. As others have pointed out, using Google (that actively crawls this site every day) will yield very good results.

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Jeff, I think this forum software is the best I have ever used, and the iPhone app is nice too. It's too bad the search doesn't work better. Like you said, google crawls this site well and I have always had good results with google searches. I can live with that.

Mark O.

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" It's too bad the search doesn't work better. "

I actually find it working pretty well...

the issue folks often encounter is not insuring that they select "forums" from the drop down located between the search terms, and the actual search icon. it often defaults to this forum, which is the specific thread it is currently at, and not the entire site!

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