Searchie Whoopsie

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sage
  • 22 comments
  • 1,064 views
Sage

Sage

Staff Emeritus
Messages
12,533
United States
United States
Messages
GTP_Sage
Is there a new minimum number of letters for search strings? I thought it was three, but when I type “RAM” into the search box, I get Sorry - no matches. Ditto when I type “RAM*” or “*RAM”.

[edit]: Very strange. I tried searching for “four” – no matches. I tried searching for “eight” (which has five letters) – no matches. Then I tried searching for “game” (four letters) – plenty of matches. Then “store” (five letters) – plenty of matches.

Bizarre.
 
I've noticed this with quite a few random words over the last few months. I never thought about making a thread like this on it because I thought it's just the way it works. I guess not.

One of many examples I remember is "BMW" or "CSL" returning to results whatsoever, even when they're put in together.
 
This is why newbies start new threads; they can't find any results for "gt4" ;)
 
Also, when the search contains 2 words it seems to search for either word on its own, not both.
 
The search algothrim is messed up.

I know that VB is flexible n stuff, but is there anyway to recode the search thingy?
 
Add two (or the required amount) of wildcards (*).

EDIT: Nope, doesn't work. It used to though.
 
Yeah, I’d already tried that. ;) (Which is why I then tested for four- and five-letter words.)
 
A few months ago I had to change our search type to use MySQL's fulltext searching capabilities. I needed to change it because vB's built-in search engine stored every word in a table, which made it fairly accurate but definitely NOT scalable to any forum over 1,000,000 posts. Fulltext searching is really just as good as vB's, but the minimum word length is set at 4 characters. I, unfortunately, was not made aware of this before I switched the search type. Changing it is also very tricky, and rebuilding the fulltext database would render the server useless for 6-12 hours.
 
But how come it isn’t working for certain four-letter strings either? “Four” returns no results. “Some” returns no results. “RAM*” returns no results. “Member” (six letters) returns no results. :confused:
 
daan
Also, when the search contains 2 words it seems to search for either word on its own, not both.
Click to expand...
I've noticed that too, but thats not unusual for search engines of any type. What is unusual, however, is that putting a phrase in quotes (which usually gives the order to search for those words, together, in that exact order) has no effect on search results. So, if I'm looking for a good car to use in GT4's tuner car champoinship in Professional Hall, typing Tuning Car Grand Prix will yield the same independently searched results as typing "Tuning Car Grand Prix". Both give unrelated threads such as "D1gp 2005", "lol", or "What Group B Rally Car is That?"
 
Does the Advanced Search yield the same results? I too seem to get some very random sometimes nil results with the normal search.

FormulaGT
 
Yup. In fact, this issue originally came up when I tried searching for “RAM” (and “RAM*”) using the Advanced Search to try and pinpoint a thread in the Computers forum. Of course, I knew something was amiss when no results showed up for RAM in a computer forum.
 
That certainly is strange... I can see it being very difficult and time consuming to correct, surely there's an easier way than what you were talking about Jordan!:nervous::crazy:

FormulaGT
 
I'd agree with HACKr. 12 hours of downtime is long, but if we get better organisation out of it, that's good. I'd rather wait 12 hours to access and find newbies making good quality threads, than making another duplicate that the search didn't turn up.
Just my $0.02.
βen
 
?en
I'd agree with HACKr. 12 hours of downtime is long, but if we get better organisation out of it, that's good. I'd rather wait 12 hours to access and find newbies making good quality threads, than making another duplicate that the search didn't turn up.
Just my $0.02.
?en
Click to expand...
But here's the flipside: what if Jordan doesn't want to work on the wimpy search engine for 12 hours?
 
Then that is quite fine-If Jordan doesn't want to work on it he doesn't have to. As simple as that. I was just stating that if he wanted to do it.
 
The search engine has sucked like this ever sinse i joined here. just my two cents... if the staff is going to continue to come down on new members like they do for creating duplicate threads, the search engine realy needs to be fixed.
 
inferno
The search engine has sucked like this ever sinse i joined here. just my two cents... if the staff is going to continue to come down on new members like they do for creating duplicate threads, the search engine realy needs to be fixed.
Click to expand...
The thing is, in my experience, MOST of what they're looking for the search engine works fine, other than the example given above for someone who wanted BMW M3 CSL settings - there were no results at all.
 
G.T
The thing is, in my experience, MOST of what they're looking for the search engine works fine, other than the example given above for someone who wanted BMW M3 CSL settings - there were no results at all.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, my experience does not concur. For example, I've searched for one of my own threads before, using the exact title of the thread, the advanced search, and specified to the forum that the thread was in, and had it return no results consistantly. I've always had problems like that with the search engine.
 
inferno
Unfortunately, my experience does not concur. For example, I've searched for one of my own threads before, using the exact title of the thread, the advanced search, and specified to the forum that the thread was in, and had it return no results consistantly. I've always had problems like that with the search engine.
Click to expand...
It happen to me too. When it happen I use google like:
Code: 
"bmw drift" site:www.gtplanet.net
This will give me better result than searching using advance search.

I am ok with 1 day downtime as long as it will give better result and won't give more problem. Maybe this should be tested on first.

If it have 2% chance of creating problem, I think it's better if we use google to search. Maybe this will increase GTPlanet rating too :).
 
Problem with that is though, most people who are forum newcomers are kids my age and lower. Most of them don't know how to search with "Site:" specifically. And how many of them are really going to come here? They probably come here for settings, and go straight there, and POSSIBLY search (I know I sure as hell didn't search lol). But yeah, 12 hours is a lot of work for Jordan, but we could possibly all live 12 hours without GTPlanet. lol
 
Yes, but search function is also important for anyone else too, even for diamond member.

If using Vbulletin search function is too slow, maybe there is hack to make it fast. If I remember correctly someone mention in vbulletin support forum that disabling "Show Results as Threads" can dramatically increase search speed, aside from using zeus or thttpd web server.
 

Latest Posts

Back