This is why people don't use the search!

PardonTheWait · 6 Apr 2011 at 23:49

Trying to find the thread which is called: Pic: Your desk...RIGHT NOW

I didn't know the exact name, down to the character.

You would think that searching for 'your desk right now' would do it, right?

No :/

Seriously, what the hell. Search is completely crippled by this. Is there no way it could be made a little more friendly? I often find I'm unable to find a particular thread despite knowing the name of the thread almost word for word, and some things are just almost impossible to search for

loltim · 6 Apr 2011 at 23:51

use more words, I found it within 5 seconds with "desk and messy"

Van Hellseek · 6 Apr 2011 at 23:52

Edit: Fail.

GothicCorpse · 6 Apr 2011 at 23:53

google.com (ocuk Your desk...RIGHT NOW)
found it

fidget · 6 Apr 2011 at 23:53

http://www.google.co.uk

Search for:

Code:

inurl:forums.overclockers.co.uk "your desk right now"

Much better than vBulletin's search.

d_brennen · 6 Apr 2011 at 23:56

More to the point what is on your desk you'd like to share?

Van Hellseek · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:00

Ok, ignore my above fail... The trick is to use advanced search, and select thread titles, rather than posts.

There's a drop-down that says "seach entire posts". Change it to "Search titles only".

Job done. :cool:

Greenlizard0 · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:03

The thing that makes it crippling, though not really anybody's fault, is that you have to wait so long between searches.

I'm just not used to that, even on forums. I lose interest ..

Van Hellseek · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:04

Greenlizard0 said:
The thing that makes it crippling, though not really anybody's fault, is that you have to wait so long between searches.

I'm just not used to that, even on forums. I lose interest ..

The search feature of vB is much improved in vB4. So I guess we can all look forward to that, when OcUK decide to update in in 3-5 years time.

PardonTheWait · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:12

fidget said:
http://www.google.co.uk

Search for:

Code:

inurl:forums.overclockers.co.uk "your desk right now"

Much better than vBulletin's search.

that's what I usually end up doing, but surely that's not right? Can't they just make the search a bit less crap?

Van Hellseek · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:12

PardonTheWait said:
that's what I usually end up doing, but surely that's not right? Can't they just make the search a bit less crap?

Or just use it as I said above? Works perfectly fine.

Glaucus · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:15

The character limit is worse, sometimes you need to search for something small along with some other common words.

rypt · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:15

Google > OcUK Search

PardonTheWait · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:17

Van Hellseek said:
Or just use it as I said above? Works perfectly fine.

There's been a few things that I have been completely unable to make appear on the first page of results, and they weren't really obscure. I forget what they were but I tried putting stuff in quotes, changing it to titles only, changing all sorts of stuff and it still insisted on only letting me get really really vague results.

Between it dropping words that it deems too common, and refusing to let you search for short words, I reckon it makes one in four searches that I try almost impossible, and I have to go through google. Surely they can make it a little bit better?

I don't mind waiting between searches, I know a search function can hammer a server, but when you wait 10 seconds between attempts at getting the search to do anything useful at all, it gets annoying :/

Van Hellseek · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:21

I think if it's particularly vague then any method of searching is going to struggle. But yeah, I agree vB3 search is far from perfect.

PardonTheWait · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:25

Is it the VB search that's crap then? I just don't remember it being as awful as this, dropping words and so on. I thought OcUK had purposely restricted it to save bandwidth or something, but if it's VB's fault I take it all back

Van Hellseek · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:28

It's exactly the same on my own vB forum.

PardonTheWait · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:29

I take it all back then!

That's grim though :/

v0n · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:37

vbulletin search is fine, indexing can be customised in control panel to anything, two characters is popular choice, default is three and it's a left over from old days when a typical forum setup was a massive, old mysql database running on a 120Mhz Sparc and a drive with IO so slow it had performance times quoted in three digits. For a technical forum 3 letter limit is very unfortunate, just think of all the hardware symbols, abbrevs and company names with three letters you cannot search for, especially since search already has anti abuse timeout, but in the end - in case of a busy forum it does limit load on server.

Biohazard · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:38

need moar processorz!!!