Search doesn't work for 3-letter terms

[ColinJ]

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!

 

[Amanda P]

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.

 

[numbnuts]

I think all forums are the same using search

 

[thomas]

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

 

[ColinJ]

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...

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.

 

[gaz]

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.

 

[Shaun]

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

 

[Shaun]

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

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[Theseus]

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

 

[Shaun]

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

Erm ...

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

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[ColinJ]

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.

 

[HJ]

I would like to search using quotes too...

 

[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.

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

 

[Shaun]

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

 

[blazed]

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