Search Engine

[DavidY]

I clearly don't understand how the forum search engine works - can anyone explain it...?

As mentioned in another thread I couldn't work out what Chicklet's "BTMML" meant. (It turns out to be "Better Thana Ma Mammas Lasagne", as Franck pointed out in a reply to my question)

Anyhow when I was originally looking for it, I thought I'd search for "better than" to see what came up. Answer according to the search engine: no posts contain those words. Neither do any results come back under "Better Than" or "Better AND Than" or "better AND than".

I can sort of understand why the original 'Better Thana" might not come up in a search for "better than".

But I don't understand why Franck's response, which does include the words "Better Than" still doesn't show in the search results! Neither does anything come back when I search the forum for just "Better"

What am I doing wrong??


David

[Franck]

Originally posted by DavidY
I clearly don't understand how the forum search engine works - can anyone explain it...?

Happy to oblige David...

In fact your post got me wondering exactly, so I did some research!

The search engine will look at an index of words (over 3 letters) and find a match. You can also use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard to expand the search options.

However, as you noticed, some common words, like better than, quote, you, me, him, where, what, etc... are not indexed as that would dramatically increase the size of the database and slow down searches.
As a result, the best way to find a post, is to use the least common word! So, to use your example, searching for 'thana' would have found the post you were looking for, indeed looking for 'btmml' would have been better still.

I hope this clarifies things slightly.

Franck.

[DavidY]

Originally posted by Franck
However, as you noticed, some common words, like better than, quote, you, me, him, where, what, etc... are not indexed as that would dramatically increase the size of the database and slow down searches.

Ah - now I understand! (... searches forum for 'enlightenment' smilie..)

So, to use your example, searching for 'thana' would have found the post you were looking for, indeed looking for 'btmml' would have been better still.

Actually I did look for 'btmml' originally, but Chicklet didn't use the abbreviation in her original post.

Thanks,
David