why do i have to google search this forum?

[Wheel_Estate]

i never get any "finds" when i search for a topic using the search at the top of the forum page ... but rather i have to Google search it , and it leads me to the FORUM ??? !!!! ????
the last example was "amish cooling unit for norcold 1200" found thread on google. SO ..what am i doing wrong ?

[cdlaine]

Rick,

Great topic... on mult. occasions, I have been chided by some
of the vintage crustaceans here to "use the search feature !!".
Not knowing , (or willing) to tack thru multiple different
"advanced" toggles, I give up and either Google, or post the
question. I'm sure many here do the same.

I feel the same way about posting photos here... (even sent Marcus
a candy gram about it ) I participate in many forums and this is the
only one that pic posting seems to require an advanced degree...
I note that related to pic posts..., many also give up. (btw , Marcus'
problem solvers punted to "IT"). Perhaps I'm the only one
with these issues.

at any rate...Google seems to work better then the Forum search
engine for me also....

Now... what do you think about China bomb ST tires ? Ha !

Charles

[Wheel_Estate]

spell check ?? LOL that has been gone for awhile

[bucky]

It was fine until they put the spell check guy in charge of it.

[powderman426]

Wheel Estate wrote:
thanks to all, i guess i have to be way less restrictive, (as i was using 'any order searches' - not the default) and i'm off to the tutorial to see if i can fix stupid lol

Sometime less is more.

[2oldman]

Wheel Estate wrote:
(as i was using 'any order searches' - not the default)

Ok, thanks for clarifying that.

I will add to my previous 'tutorial' that you'll notice it says "All the words..". See the problem? Google is able to find most or all the words as it sees fit to find what you need.

In the end it's probably easier to just use Google.

[Wheel_Estate]

thanks to all, i guess i have to be way less restrictive, (as i was using 'any order searches' - not the default) and i'm off to the tutorial to see if i can fix stupid lol

[pulsar]

The forum's search engine is not as powerful as it once was (I'll explain that below and Google is a very powerful engine.

But, chances are, if you learned the proper way to use the forum's search engine, you would get decent results. WhenI searched for amish cooling unit norcold and selected the search option "Find posts with all of the words in any order", I got this result page search results

There is a tutorial in Forum Technical Support about using the forum's search engine.

"Not as powerful as it once was." When this version of the forum's software first came into use, the Search within results was very powerful because it did a full text search, including substrings. Now, the search within results is no better than choosing the "Find posts with all of the words in any order" option.

Tom

[2oldman]

rv2go wrote:
When I enter "amish cooling unit" in the search window, I get 3 pages of finds.

Yes, and when the words "for Norcold 1200' are added, nothing is found because those exact words are not found.

[rv2go]

:h Don't know what you are doing wrong.
When I enter "amish cooling unit" in the search window, I get 3 pages of finds.

[2oldman]

Wheel Estate wrote:
what am i doing wrong ?

Using the search box at the top. LOL.

Seriously, use Advanced search, not that little box above. Why? Because when you use that box, the default search is 'exact words', and it's almost a sure bet your exact words in that order will not be found.

In Advanced Search, where it says "Keyword match", notice the default is "exact phrase." That's almost never what you want- and the more words you use, the less likely you are to find anything. Instead, click on ' Find posts with all of the words in any order' - but don't include words like 'the' and 'and'.

Google is very good at this because its default is 'any order', and some other really smart stuff I probably don't even realize. I have no confidence that the search on this board will ever be improved in any way.

Good luck.. and thanks for searching!