searching methods

[pinkfluff<P>Big Wet Drops and Lots of Them, Are a Sure Sign of Rain!<P>]

I wondered what I am doing wrong I cut and pasted something from a post that I wanted some info on and it kept coming back as "no matches" yet it was taken from a post so ther at least should be one match  I used the " ALL of the terms entered above"  method 

Am I doing something wrong?

[Baz]

The search system for this forum is very poor and your non results do not surprise me. I believe that it is an area that was going to be reviewed but no mention recently. It is a great shame as so much valuabe information is contained there but it is often impossible to find. I am certain this is the reason that the same or similar questions are often asked because the answer cannot be found.

Baz

[Ianhaycox]

One option is to use Google vis,

site:forums.livingfrance.com search terms

e.g.

site:forums.livingfrance.com fosse

Obviously the most recent posts won't be found until google has crawled the site but it's much better than the in-built search facility.

[Liz]

[quote]I wondered what I am doing wrong I cut and pasted something from a post that I wanted some info on and it kept coming back as "no matches" yet it was taken from a post so ther at least should be one m...[/quote]

I had exactly the same problem the other day.  Using 'all of the terms' for a topic I knew I had already seen a few weeks before produced nothing. Using 'any of the terms' I got about 250 entries, many of which did not seem to have any of the words I wanted at all.  I eventually found what I was looking for by working my way through all the posts in the section concerned.  Sure enough it had all of the words I had entered in the first place.

I raised this a couple of months ago with Forum Admin (I've just tried to copy the link but it has all gone wrong!) and the subject crops up regularly.  So, Forum Admin, if you're there, is anything happening to sort this out please?  It is such a shame that there is a huge store of really useful material here but it is virtually impossible to find it.

Meantime thanks to the person who suggested using Google.  I'll give that a try next time.

 

Liz (29)

[Ex Forum Admin]

Yes it's not the best search around, it came as part of the package for the software which is looking to be replaced but no timescale has been given at present.

First of all I would recommend using the advanced search not the basic search:

Advanced Search http://forums.livingfrance.com/search.aspx?adv=1

Try and narrow down the number of posts as best as you can (for example if you know which forum the post would be/is in).

It seems to have a much better response if you click 'search posts from' and select the last 7 days instead of ALL if you are looking for a particular post.

 

 

[Debra]

er - lucky you, pinkfluff, at least you get 'no matches found'.  When I do a search (yes, advanced search) all I seem to get is a list of incomprehensible errors.... (haven't got time to decipher them, bad enough trying to decipher my own java compiler errors!)