[beach004]

I haven't been active here lately, so maybe this has been mentioned and solved already. But, when I search on, say, beach004 as author, I find 170-some notes by me (blush), dating back many years. But if I add a word to search for, that I got from a note over a year ago--then the search fails; it says no notes found with that author and that word! Is there some sort of time cutoff when a word search is done? Or am I missing something?
Beach004

 

[Wobbly1]

The "author" search is confined to the name of the author. If you want to search for a specific word within a post, try a "key word" search instead and use the "Search within..." option to confine the search to a specific part of the posting.

 

[beach004]

OK, that's a good suggestion--to use "search within." But I wasn't very clear on what I'm having the present problem with: If I search for keyword "bloopers" I get a lot of hits; if I search for author "beach004" I get a lot of hits; but if I use both together, I get no hits--even though I know there's a note out there, by me, with bloopers in the text. Since I usually sign my notes, I might try keyword bloopers, along with keyword beach004, and see if that works.

 

[beach004]

The mystery deepens. Back in 2004, I used the word "danced" in a note; I found this out by searching on my name, and looking 'way back in the 422 results. But if I then start a new search, and look only for keyword = "danced" the search finds only uses of that word in the last year--nothing before that. Somehow, something is cutting off keyword searches at a year or thereabouts. This is not good.
Beach004

 

[John H]

Essentially, the search function on this board sucks. I think thats why many folks, especially new folks, just ask the same question over and over- the likelyhood of searching for a phrase search can find is almost nil. It's easier to just ask.

Somebody will either answer the question directly, or do the search with a phrase that works and post the link.

I seem to do ok with the search function, but I know of a fairly active .410 thread that is very difficult to find using search. If I need to get to that one, I look for authors - rather than .410 or PW.

john

 

[beach004]

Reluctantly, I'm inclined to agree with your first statement. But my own experiment was so streamlined and simple--I searched for just a single word, not a phrase, a word I know was in a note; what I seem to have found is that keyword searches just don't go back more than a year. Or am I misinterpreting my experiment's results?
Beach004

 

[beach004]

Hearing (and observing) that this site's search engine is not the greatest, I went to Google, advanced search, and used this string: "shot roll beach004 site:shotgunworld.com" With this search, you are only looking inside this Forum for results. I was looking for a note I wrote, maybe 18 months ago, about buying some shot that was so deformed, it wouldn't roll off the workbench.

The good news is, Google found the link; it was entitled "Lead shot for sale!" But the mysterious (to me) bad news is--when I click on it, I go to this Forum all right, but get only the message, "The requested topic does not exist." Was this topic removed, for some reason? Hard to figure. Anyway, I write this so if you want to search for a message over a year old, you will have a means of doing so via Google.
Beach004

 

[FullandFuller]

I believe the issue you are having with only finding results from this year is due to the database being upgraded. That occurred mid-March 09. Conduct your test again with your author name + keyword from a post in April 09 and a keyword from Feb 09 and see if that is what happens. I just did, and the results happen just like that. It is interesting that searches by Author are found previous to this but not keyword/text.

My guess is the "search for keywords" field is the first criteria, and that only goes back to mid-March 09. Beyond that, all the old posts' text are not indexed. When keyword is left blank, the "search for authors" is used and it does not matter that the old post's contents are not indexed, because the author is.

Google works nicely here, but I recently realized it does not work on all websites. There is another forum I frequent that shows no hits on google, so I guess there are ways to keep google bots out of your domain? I'm no web admin, but I found it interesting - and a pain in the butt because that site's search function only allows 1 search every 2 minutes. Very slow.

Jeremiah