TheRecklessEngineer Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 I don't know about anyone else, but sometimes I find the forum search function doesn't always turn up the results you want. It occurred to me today to use Google to search the forum. If you type "site:forums.lr4x4.com" followed by your keywords into Google, then it will only return hits from that site. For example, with the keywords "Battery charger" site:forums.lr4x4.com battery charger which returned the thread I was looking for as the first hit. The same keywords into the forum's search engine produces a nearly incomprehensible list. Of course this is a function of Google, so won't return new threads until Google's spiders have had their wicked way... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cipx2 Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 That's because you dind't use the forum's search facility the same (kind of) way Google searched and listed the answers. Do this: and you'll get the same winning thread: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
defninety Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 I was just wondering... does anyone know why you have to use a word with 4 or more letters or the search doesn't work???? I know this can be set to whatever by the powers at be, but it seems a common occurrence on pretty much all forums. It it a default setting or it it to stop rubbish results??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest diesel_jim Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 And it can be quite annoying when you're looking for such things as: ABS brakes ARB lockers LHD something RHD or other BFG tyres QT suspension bits Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cipx2 Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 The limitation is given by MySQL, the database management software package behind the forum software. The default setting in MySQL is that the word should have at least 4 characters, the porpoise of this limitation being system overload protection (like when someone searches for something and the other users start complaining about forum not working or working very slow). This limit can be dropped to 3 letter words by the sys admin (not forum admin - from system privileges p.o.v) if he considers the hardware is powerful enough or the database is small enough. For 3 letter words or combination use google as in 1st post of the thread. It's much faster anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
western Posted December 5, 2008 Share Posted December 5, 2008 top quality advice & Yes the forum will not search for words of 3 letters or less. as Cipx2 says google it as above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
missingsid Posted December 6, 2008 Share Posted December 6, 2008 Thanks James, I have been failing miserably to use the search effectivly even when using the three different layers of the search engine. This is a great help if it can search 3 letter acronyms. Marc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cipx2 Posted December 6, 2008 Share Posted December 6, 2008 The issue and the 'trick' were discussed a number of times on this forum. http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=30090 http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=27994 ..... Given the St. Nicholas Day here's another trick: If you want to limit a google search (say for "Td5 EGR valve") to a certain section of the forum (say Defender area) use this: Td5 EGR valve +"Vehicles > Defender" site:lr4x4.com in a google search field. The trick is based on including in the search field of something unique to the threads of a specific section. This "something" is taken from address on top of the page, before the 1st post of the thread. To avoid 'false readings' you need to include more than just 'Defender' or more than 'International' and for that you need to make use of the syntax. Other examples (xxx= what you want to search for): Discovery area: xxx +"Vehicles > Discovery" site:lr4x4.com Freelander area: xxx +"Vehicles > Freelander" site:lr4x4.com International area: xxx +"Lounge > International" site:lr4x4.com etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRecklessEngineer Posted December 6, 2008 Author Share Posted December 6, 2008 Apologies, didn't realise this had been covered before. Might it be worth adding a Google custom search box somewhere on the forum? It may help for those 'Let me google that for you' moments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newclear Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 Just as a note, has this behaviour been changed? Noticed just today that I could search for 3 letter words... "Washer jet" worked fine, well, it searched yet the information I got back was a bit... "much" Used the Google "trick" and found what I wanted Cheers Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sotal Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 Jet on it's own returns no results, "washer jet" will probably be searched as a phrase *Edit* Just checked and it ignores the "jet" word. Try searching for ibex jet, it will return todays ibex post which has no reference to jet in it. Then try searching for jdklsjdklsjf jet and it returns no results proving that it's not searching for jet at all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cipx2 Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 No, nothing's changed. If you searched for "Washer jet" (including the quotes) then you searched for a single word, 10 characters long (the space counts and is treated as a character). In other words you searched for an expression that is taken as a single word. If you searched for Washer jet (without quotes) then the system will search for each word in the array except 3 character or less words (in this case will search for Washer), won't report an error because it has something to work with (at least one valid word). On the other hand, the results will have 3 or less character words highlighted because this is done by the forum software, not MySQL search engine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newclear Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 Ok no probs, cleared that up (for me) Just a case of getting used to each search system, what comes from using 3 forums, each with different software . Cheers Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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