forum search

[guildmage 11]

In short, it's extremely easy to use forum search, until you try searching for short keywords, like: 16v, abs, vr6, oil, etc... It just returns no results.

 

I know I can use something like "abs constantly on", etc... but it is still omitting the important keyword: "abs".

 

I checked and when you search for 3 letter word (abs, oil, ...) it just says: "Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms".

However, when trying 2 letter word (9a or KR) it says: "The following words are either very common, too long, or too short and were not included in your search: 9a"

 

Am I being thick or just I'm missing something obvious?

[Andi 2,147,483,647]

vBulletin doesn't like doing searches on words

The database is 12gb, and making it reindex to take into account 3 letter words takes 24 hours per pass, whilst bringing the site to a crawl.

 

The site is indexed by Google at least once a week. Your best bet is to use Google and the keyword

site:the-corrado.net

 

Hope that helps ;)

[guildmage 11]

oke doke... sounds like a good plan. Actually, you're right, very often when was searching on Google I ended up here anyway :)

 

On a side note, 12GB - wow, bet must be nightmare for backups :(

[Walesy 0]

You can also try adding a '*' after the term you're searching for on here - i.e search for ' ABS* ' or ' VR6* ' - it'll at least recognise the term you're searching for then.

[guildmage 11]

You can also try adding a '*' after the term you're searching for on here - i.e search for ' ABS* ' or ' VR6* ' - it'll at least recognise the term you're searching for then.

 

This a very good advice, thanks. It works just fine searching like that.

Edited May 13, 2012 by guildmage

[Walesy 0]

Glad it helped mate! :awesome:

[Kevin Bacon 5]

On a side note, 12GB - wow, bet must be nightmare for backups :(

 

Not as much of a nightmare as backing up 4TB of music and films!

[guildmage 11]

Not as much of a nightmare as backing up 4TB of music and films!

 

Yes and no. 4TB of music and films you can back up once a month, where forum database, I presume, is backed up daily :)

[Kevin Bacon 5]

The entire 12GB, or just changes?

[guildmage 11]

I dunno really, I suppose it will be doing full once a week and then daily incremental or so... Any databases I had experience with were website databases, and they were like max 1GB - and that was huge database for a typical website! That is why was surprised of the 12GB size of our forum, but I bet it is also storing all pictures etc... and we have a lot people, and also forum was for a while... so maybe 12GB is not that big. I'm only guessing :)

 

We are going nicely off-topic here but I don't mind as I am stuck at work... and I'm in one of these Monday moods, where I just cba do to anything!

[Kevin Bacon 5]

S'OK, I don't really know much about it. I just saw 12GB and thought it was a tiny amount. Compared to media files at least :D

 

Our sharepoint App Pools exceed 5GB easily, and that's just company bumpf, mostly text. Ever since Windows XP came along, file sizes of everything has just ballooned out of control. I mean, look at iphones as an example. How can a bloomin telephone need a 1.5GB OS?!! A bloody phone!! Madness. I remember when MS Office came on 13 floppy disks, now it comes on a DVD!

 

When I was working at SunAlliance in 1995, the entire policyholder database was a kept on ancient dinner plate sized disk arrays. IBM 5250. And 1GB was a lot back then. 1GB now is a few compressed Friends episodes!

[guildmage 11]

Just found a nifty way for searching our forum using short keywords. Let's try to search for something really tricky, like: ABS on my g60

As you can see all keywords are less than 4 characters and it will be hard to get some results.

 

As "Walesy" suggested we can cheat a little and try something like: ABS* on* my* g60*

Adding the "*" will in many cases help in search but in our example, there is just too many short keywords anyway.

 

Now then, we can use Google engine to find us what we need! So let's have a look at example: >>> click me

As you can see there are some very promising results. Pretty cool ha? ...or boring and way too techy? :scratch: Anyhow, if you need to search for a short keyword and you're stuck.. well there is a way.

 

* had to use lmtgfy.com website to show you how to use it, due to forum wrapping the syntax in tags. Couldn't figure out how to do it any other way.

[Wullie 1]

That is brilliant. Buy yourself a beer on me you clever little Sony.

[VR6 0]

Your best bet is to use Google and the keyword site:the-corrado.net

 

Hope that helps ;)

 

Beaten to it ...

 

Useful to have the thread bouncing around though.

[guildmage 11]

oh hey... re-read this whole thread again and ofcourse you're right. It was already posted by Andi... ehh there are some days one would wish to read more with understanding not just read for the sake of it :)