Are there instructions somewhere on how to search the boards? Can't figure it out. Getting way too many irrelevant threads.

 

Try the advanced search option and use the " AND " operator to increase your relevant results. Be sure it's spelled in CAPS. It seems to help me narrow the results to more usefull threads !!

 

The search engine is still in beta. However, please provide some examples so that we can see what is happening, and perhaps help.

Aside from using the + operator between multiple keywords to instruct the search engine to only find posts that contain ALL of those words, you can also search by thread title. For instance, if you only want to find ads in the Classifieds that contain the word GTA in the thread title/subject, in the keyword field enter:

and select the appropriate subforum. That will instruct the search engine to only return threads with the word GTA in the thread title/subject.

Please provide some examples so that we can see the problem, and possibly assist.

 

Do you use spaces like normal writing or is it xxxxANDxxxxANDxxx

 

Yes - normal spacing.

 

Seems to work better. Thanks.

My suggestion is to post clear instructions where you search from.

Another suggestion is to require a state, prov. or country be selected when posting in classifieds. The poster can't post if they leave that box blank.

 

The search is still in beta. However, I had already planned, and will, make some tips readily available for using the search.

Thanks.

 

Those are overall good tips.

Keep in mind though that in most instances, "title:" queries may not be necessary, as posts that contain the keywords you search for in their title should appear first. When this does not happen, please do post a thread with specific examples so we can track-down issues.

I cannot begin to relate to you how helpful specific examples are.

What follows are tips and tricks for those of you who want to get all gnarly with searching.

If you do a "title:" search, you should keep in mind that the title field is the only thing that will get searched, and the body of the post, will be completely ignored. This is often pretty okay, and consistent with the way the old "search threads by title" used to work.

However, if you're performing "title:" searches with multiple terms: The "space" in-between terms separates isn't part of the "title:" directive.

As an example, consider this search:

title:term1 term2

This will return results that have "term1" in their title, and "term2" in either title OR body ... which is likely not what you intended.

What you might have instead meant to search for is this:

title:term1+term2+term3

This should only return posts that have all 3 term1, term2, and term3 in their title, while not at all caring about what's in the body.

One thing to clarify about the "+" (aka AND) operator: It tells the engine that this term MUST be present. Any post (or field if performing field-specific searches such as "title:") where this term isn't present, will get completely dropped, and not just marked as "less relevant" and appear further below.

So in this last scenario, any post that doesn't have all 3 terms in their title, will get completely dropped. This may or may not be a good thing. Sure you'll definitely get less results, but you'll likely miss useful posts and threads.

Alternatively to the above "all or nothing" approach while using the "+" operator, the new search engine has a potentially useful lesser-known feature:

You can indicate to the search engine which terms you care more about relatively to others, by boosting individual terms with various number values, 2 usually works wonders, but you might play around with higher values:

term1 term2 term3^2

^2 gives posts that contain term3, a higher relevance. The above search should surface toward the top posts that contain term3 "for pretty darn sure" and any combination of term1 and term2, in either body and title, with preference for title.

If you're trying to restrict the above search to titles only, as if queries didn't look crazy enough, you can try this:

title:term1 title:term2 title:term3^2

The multi-billion-dollar challenge the big guys such as Google solve, is to automagically determine the boosting of a given term relatively to other terms in your query ... for you.

Because of course, you don't subject yourself to the above madness when Googling, do you?

 

We still have some members that prefer (and requested) the ability to strictly search by title/subject only, albeit from the search queries I've seen in the past, this is not the majority of searching.

By the way, I sent you an email.

 

How do you get results older then 2 weeks ?? (before 9-25-07 ????? )

 

To clarify, are you trying to find results that are only before 9/25/07, or are you stating that the results you see aren't showing anything older than 9/25/07? Your post can be taken either way. If it's the latter, please provide an example as I'm not aware of the search only showing recent posts.

 

There is no option for finding posts before "X" date.



1) Access Parts for sale forum

2) search "CAMARO"


You can browse thru them or sort by post date and go to the last page of the results......... No add is older the 9-25-07.


The "Find items posted within the past" advanced option doesn't work AT ALL. Only posts from 9-25-07 and after are returned regardless of the time frame specified.

 

 

I thought this was fixed. The issues you describe are not an intended design/feature. I'll do some digging to find out the problem.

Thanks.

 

Update. This should be fixed late tonight/early tomorrow morning.

 

Yup,..... Looks like we go back to April of 06' now !