Search problem

[super_kev]

Hi all,
I have a comment/concern/complaint about the search feature of this board. For example, when I type in "X800 temp" I get more than 500 results, most of which are useless and are dealing with "temp" or "X800", not both. With every other forum I visit, when I type in more than one word and search, it is treated as "and", so I would get results with "X800" and "temp". Can someone fix this? I refuse to spend hours searching through non-applicable posts hoping to find an answer.

 

[WildCowboy]

I completely agree. The search function was changed awhile back and it made some things better, but a lot of them worse...this being the main thing. If I put in multiple search terms, they should be considered in an AND sense, not OR.

That said, use MRoogle. It won't find the latest entries, but it works pretty well.

 

[exabytes18]

Time to get to my profile...
macrumors.com search - 1.30 seconds
google.com seach - 0.25 seconds

Slightly unrelated, but the members search feature could be much faster. The search should try to get information from my row in the db before attempting a huge search through every single row. I'm not sure why vB doesn't do this.

 

[vniow]

I've noticed that the database is seeming out of date or something like that. When I do a search for my username for example it doesn't show up some entries which I know it does. I've noticed this for awhile so I don't think its something new.

Also the ICQ icon seems to be gone, it just displays text instead.

 

[mad jew]

When I do a search for my username for example it doesn't show up some entries which I know it does.

I get the exact same problem. I know that if you edit your post, the edited version isn't included in the search database, but sometimes there are posts with terms I know were originally there (I put them there, sans editing) and it still can't find them.

 

[super_kev]

What's the status? Is the site admin going to fix this, or is Macrumors going to be stuck with a crippled and utterly worthless search engine?

 

[topgunn]

I agree.

So someone comes to the site and wants to look for information regarding the X1600 on the new 17" Macbook Pro. They're a smart newbie so they try the search function. Hmmmm.....search for "X1600" & "Macbook Pro". Wow, 2000 results. Maybe I should narrow it down. "X1600", "Macbook Pro", & 17". Weird...3000 results.

Adding more terms to limit your search should not expand it. I have resorted to finding the term most likely to be used in the TITLE and search for that ONE WORD. It is incredibly painful. At least add modifiers so that we can put a "+" sign in front of a word to make it appear or a "-" to exclude a term or use """" (that didn't work out very well) to use an exact phrase.

 

[arn]

I added a google search of the site from the "Search" pop-down menu on the navigation bar.

Perhaps people will have better luck with that.

arn

 

[WildCowboy]

I added a google search of the site from the "Search" pop-down menu on the navigation bar.

Perhaps people will have better luck with that.

arn

Ooh...that's nice. Built-in MRoogle!!

You guys are on a real "new feature" kick recently...thanks for keeping MR the best Mac forum on the internets! You guys rock!

 

[xsedrinam]

I added a google search of the site from the "Search" pop-down menu on the navigation bar.

Perhaps people will have better luck with that.

arn

Excellent! Thanks, Arn.