Search Function Frustration

**ih8mice** · 02-04-2010, 12:09

I'm not sure if this was a fluke or not but I did a search for Jerry Chair and put it in quotes ("Jerry Chair"), and it seemed to return useful results. I believe quotes make the search look for exact matches rather than finding matches for each word in your query.

when to use quotes in a search:
http://www4.uwm.edu/libraries/help/f...tion-marks.cfm

**Knotty** · 02-04-2010, 13:04

Originally Posted by ih8mice

I'm not sure if this was a fluke or not but I did a search for Jerry Chair and put it in quotes ("Jerry Chair"), and it seemed to return useful results. I believe quotes make the search look for exact matches rather than finding matches for each word in your query.

when to use quotes in a search:
http://www4.uwm.edu/libraries/help/f...tion-marks.cfm

Putting Jerry Chair in quotes produces 500 hits (the max allowed) and I doubt that phrase was used that many times on this site. It also ranked the Jerry Chair discussion at about 18th.

I have used the advanced search many times, but it also applies the same 'AND' function to a multiple word search.

Will look into the Google option, but a good search engine native to the site would be best.

**ih8mice** · 02-04-2010, 13:19

Originally Posted by Knotty

Putting Jerry Chair in quotes produces 500 hits (the max allowed) and I doubt that phrase was used that many times on this site. It also ranked the Jerry Chair discussion at about 18th.

That's weird...I get 19 results w/o the quotes and 16 results when using quotes.

I'm searching for threads rather than posts though.

**BER** · 02-04-2010, 13:22

I have had similar frustrations.

The search phrases jerry chair, "Jerry Chair", Jerry and chair, Jerry + Chair, and Jerry & chair all yield the same results. Looking through the results either Jerry or chair is highlighted. And any thread posted by Jerry W where his signature line is his name, shows up regardless of the topic of conversation.

The actual Jerry Chair thread is 23rd on the list for me regardless of whether I put in Jerry Chair, "Jerry Chair" or Jerry and chair.

on Google "jerry chair", hammockforums.net listed this this thread first

**dgmyrs** · 02-04-2010, 13:31

One trick you can use with a lot of searches, including hammock forums is to use a + in front of each word that must be included. If you don't and have multiple words it will return anything that has either words. So, if you want only results that have both jerry and chair, search for +jerry +chair

**Knotty** · 02-04-2010, 13:35

Originally Posted by dgmyrs

One trick you can use with a lot of searches, including hammock forums is to use a + in front of each word that must be included. If you don't and have multiple words it will return anything that has either words. So, if you want only results that have both jerry and chair, search for +jerry +chair

Those techniques don't work here, unfortunately.

**VegaMike** · 02-04-2010, 13:56

I can help with tag cloud maintenance. I have a background in controlled vocabularies.

I noticed some duplicates that should be refactored (consolidated):

hammock hammocks
hang hanging hangout
question questions
tarp tarps

I'm happy to lend a hand with this.

Do I need special access rights for this endeavor?

**BER** · 02-04-2010, 14:00

Originally Posted by dgmyrs

One trick you can use with a lot of searches, including hammock forums is to use a + in front of each word that must be included. If you don't and have multiple words it will return anything that has either words. So, if you want only results that have both jerry and chair, search for +jerry +chair

dgmyrs: This does not change the results here compared to the other search combinations I listed in the post right above yours. Try it. You'll see.

Originally Posted by VegaMike

I can help with tag cloud maintenance. I have a background in controlled vocabularies.

Unlike Mike I have a background in very "uncontrolled vocabularies"

**angrysparrow** · 02-04-2010, 14:03

Folks, just like I said above, I adjusted the result relevance weighting. Any 'results' being claimed need to be re-done.

A single search for the term jerry chair yields 21 threads where it is mentioned, and they are weighted towards the most recent hit (i.e. this thread).

**angrysparrow** · 02-04-2010, 14:06

Originally Posted by VegaMike

I'm happy to lend a hand with this.

Mike, thanks for the offer. vBulletin has limited tag maintainence features in the current version, so you would be of limited assistance I'm afraid. There is no mechanism to prevent them from re-occurring. It would be better to wait for that to be implemented before we get into a tag overhaul.

Even if there are duplicate tags, a search for the shorter of the two will yield what you seek.