# Search doesn't work for 3-letter terms



## ColinJ (4 Sep 2009)

If you take a look at this thread you will see that _jay clock_ complains that he can't find any results searching for _GPS_. I tried it and he's right. I assume that something in the way that the forum software is set up prevents the use of short search terms. If so, I think that this case illustrates why it shouldn't!


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## Amanda P (4 Sep 2009)

It'll be the same software that prevented me searching a canoeing forum for the word "Wye". "River wye" returned hits for every post that mentioned a river. Quite a few of those on a canoeing forum... It's also remarkable how many UK rivers have three-letter names.

None of this helps of course, unless it makes Shaun feel better that his isn't the only forum afflicted with this problem.


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## numbnuts (4 Sep 2009)

I think all forums are the same using search


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## thomas (4 Sep 2009)

i think it is meant to stop people searching for "the" and "and".


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## ColinJ (4 Sep 2009)

Uncle Phil said:


> It'll be the same software that prevented me searching a canoeing forum for the word "Wye". "River wye" returned hits for every post that mentioned a river. Quite a few of those on a canoeing forum... It's also remarkable how many UK rivers have three-letter names.
> 
> None of this helps of course, unless it makes Shaun feel better that his isn't the only forum afflicted with this problem.


That's another point!

I'd like to be able to do more intelligent searches such as ""river wye", river AND wye, river OR wye...



thomas said:


> i think it is meant to stop people searching for "the" and "and".


It probably is, but why not let them? If it causes some sort of resources problem then have a list of words that we can't search for such as AND, THE, THEM, THEIR. Oh, the software does stop searches for THEM and THEIR as well as 3-letter words. Okay, add the undesirable 3-letter words to the list and allow all the others.


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## gaz (4 Sep 2009)

it's forum software, it can be changed in the back end.

When i was moderating a forum which i shall not name, but was one of the biggist rapidshare link sharing forums. we had to tag every single thread with keywords so that things like this didn't happen. It is very time consuming, but we did have to read every single post to check for various things.


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## Shaun (5 Sep 2009)

It's not the forum software, it's a condition of the default installation of mysql. The default minimum word_length that is indexed for full-text table indexes is 4 letters.

I'll have a go at changing the default word length to 3.

If, however, it puts too much strain on the server, I'll be reverting it back.

Cheers,
Shaun 

PS. There are also a series of default stopwords that are not indexed: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/fulltext-stopwords.html


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## Shaun (5 Sep 2009)

Try searching for GPS or Sat Nav now and you should get some matching results.

Cheers,
Shaun


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## Theseus (5 Sep 2009)

Will it work if I do a search for the forest of Ae?


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## Shaun (5 Sep 2009)

Touche said:


> Will it work if I do a search for the forest of *Ae*?



Erm ...



Admin said:


> I'll have a go at changing the default word length to *3*.




Cheers,
Shaun


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## ColinJ (5 Sep 2009)

Admin said:


> Try searching for GPS or Sat Nav now and you should get some matching results.
> 
> Cheers,
> Shaun


Thanks Shaun - that's better.

Now can you make searches in quotes work? I can see the reason for 'stop' words but I would like to be able to search for phrases that might include them. Heck, being able to search for phrases that _don't_ include them would be an improvement!

I'd like to be able to search for "Lotus Seven" and not be told that _Seven _was a stop word. I wouldn't want to find _Lotus Elan_.

As I mentioned above, I'd also like to be able to search for word1/phrase1 AND word2/phrase2 AND... 

If I searched for _"lose weight" AND climbing AND hills_ it would match: 

_If I *lose weight*, would it help my *climbing*? Where I live there are lots of *hills*!_

but not match:

_Where I live there no *hills* so I don't have to worry about my *weight* when *climbing*. I could do with buying a map, however, because I often *lose* my way._


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## HJ (5 Sep 2009)

I would like to search using quotes too...


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## Shaun (5 Sep 2009)

ColinJ said:


> Thanks Shaun - that's better.
> 
> Now can you make searches in quotes work? I can see the reason for 'stop' words but I would like to be able to search for phrases that might include them. Heck, being able to search for phrases that _don't_ include them would be an improvement!
> 
> ...



Hi Colin,

I'm afraid there isn't much I can do about the built-in search functionality, however if you search for "lotus seven" it will find it okay - you don't get a stop error because it searches for the phrase.

Equally if you want variations of _lose weight_, _climbing_, and _hills _- just put them in quotes and they will be returned whenever they are all present (regardless of order in the post) e.g. *"lose weight" "climbing" "hills"* 

Cheers,
Shaun


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## Shaun (6 Sep 2009)

Just to add to that, the *default search* method is to search *Threads* - that is, if those words are present within the entire thread (that is all posts in a single thread), then add them to the search results.

To find *individual posts* with *ALL of those words*, you need to go to the advanced search page and change _*Show Results as*_ to *Posts*.

Cheers,
Shaun


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## blazed (7 Sep 2009)

Uncle Phil said:


> It'll be the same software that prevented me searching a canoeing forum for the word "Wye". "River wye" returned hits for every post that mentioned a river. Quite a few of those on a canoeing forum... It's also remarkable how many UK rivers have three-letter names.
> 
> None of this helps of course, unless it makes Shaun feel better that his isn't the only forum afflicted with this problem.



You should learn how to use google, if the forum is indexed properly its actually easier to use google than the forum software. Example for gps


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## ColinJ (7 Sep 2009)

blazed said:


> You should learn how to use google, if the forum is indexed properly its actually easier to use google than the forum software. Example for gps


That's a good tip, but it would still be nice if the built-in search was more flexible.

Here's a question for you (I don't know the answer). Here are two Google queries:

*site:cyclechat.co.uk gps -"garmin etrex" -"sat nav" -phone -route*

This returns 115 results.

*site:cyclechat.co.uk gps -"garmin etrex" -"sat nav" -phone -route -rides*

This more restrictive search returns 1,180 results. Why?


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## Shaun (8 Sep 2009)

The vBulletin people are working on a whole new version which is due out later this year - hopefully they will have re-worked the search functionality a bit.

Even their own support forums are restricted to 4 letter words or higher - which can be really restrictive for some queries. Makes your brain hurt sometimes, trying to find a way of phrasing a search query without some of the key words you'd normally use. 

Cheers,
Shaun


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## ColinJ (18 Mar 2010)

Admin said:


> The vBulletin people are working on a whole new version which is due out later this year - hopefully they will have re-worked the search functionality a bit.
> 
> Even their own support forums are restricted to 4 letter words or higher - which can be really restrictive for some queries. Makes your brain hurt sometimes, trying to find a way of phrasing a search query without some of the key words you'd normally use.
> 
> ...


Hi Shaun.

So - _were_ any helpful changes made to the vBulletin search functionality or do I have to carry on searching CC using Google as below?


> site:cyclechat.net "what I want to find" -"not what I don't"


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## Shaun (18 Mar 2010)

Yes. I modified the config of MySQL on the server to allow 3 letter words in the search.

Cheers,
Shaun


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## longers (17 Sep 2010)

I don't think we can search for two letter words on the new software, is it possible to tweak it so we can?


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## Shaun (17 Sep 2010)

longers said:


> I don't think we can search for two letter words on the new software, is it possible to tweak it so we can?



No, sorry, that would add too large an overhead to the search database / process.

Cheers,
Shaun


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## Panter (17 Sep 2010)

Isn't it the case that you can add an asterix after the word if it's too short for the search function? or is that a function of completely different bulletin board software altogether?


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## longers (17 Sep 2010)

Admin said:


> No, sorry, that would add too large an overhead to the search database / process.
> 
> Cheers,
> Shaun



Fair enough, makes sense actually. 

I had a go with an asterisk and it worked for just _on*_ but didn't work for _seen on* the ride_, even in quotes.


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## Shaun (17 Sep 2010)

SQL searching can be a bit of a dark art at times, but I'm advised the software interface between the forums and the Sphinx back-end database is going to be shown some love by the developers in coming updates.

Cheers,
Shaun


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## HLaB (17 Sep 2010)

Its not perfect but what I've done before is searched for SpaceGPS (or ' GPS') turning it into a 4 letter search and it'll find things but you might have to do multiple searches ('GPS ' and 'GPS.' )and it might not catch everything ('GPS').


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## sgw (19 Sep 2010)

blazed said:


> Example for gps



Have I missed something? I get:-

_"Your search - *"gps" site:cyclechat.co.uk* - did not match any documents."_


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## Shaun (19 Sep 2010)

Try "gps site:cyclechat.net"

Since the move I've only been able to run the site from one domain - cyclechat.net

There are 301 redirects in place for cyclechat.co.uk and cycle-cafe.net, and I assume Google has dropped most of the previous indexed content.

Cheers,
Shaun


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