I can't say that I like the new and less effective search feature RCU just started. It seems a lot of unrelated stuff comes up which means a lot things I'm looking for are probably not listed. What was wrong with previous search and advanced search functions?

What unrelated stuff comes up? We do what is called word stemming so if for example you type in servo it also finds 'servos'. Is this what you mean? This search does not find anything unrelated to what you are looking for. It finds the exact words you typed in. You can sort by relevance, date created, etc and you can also filter by forum, username, date. Additionally you can search from within a forum or within a thread to find hits limited to the forum you are in or thread.

The previous search was our number one complaint in the past couple years with more complaints each passing month. The old one had incomplete results, no results when search terms DID exist en masse, it was slow taking 10 seconds to 1.5 minutes if it returned any results at all. It was only getting worse with each day as more posts were added and the technology could not keep up.

The new search delivers sub second results. They are dead accurate finding the terms you enter or phrases if put in quotes. Advanced options you can learn about by clicking the "More Info" link under the search box.

Marc, previously I could go to the advanced search, type in a word or words(and between them), ask that the search only be conducted in the titles. As you well know, if I search "OS 35", with the new system I cannot(or have not found how) search just the titles. It now lists threads that might have the following, " when my OS engine reached 35 psi."

Just go type OS 35 in the search window and see all the other non related stuff that shows up. Most everything that is listed has no bearing whatsoever to "OS 35." The search is so nearly useless as to make one not even want to search at all.

Here is a link to the Q&A section, http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_8737669/tm.htm

Marc, I'm playing with it. I'll figure it out.

However, I just typed in the all forums search window subject "os 35" and only the first entry had OS 35 in the title. All the rest of the search results was showing OS and 35 somewhere in the body of the search.

If you ONLY want to search subject then preface the words you want in the subject with this below

subjects subject:35

OR for the phrase easier like

subject:"os 35"

you need the word subject then a colon then the keyword or phrase

Right now the system is using the AND mode by default so the + does not work where you could type say subjects+35 to grab those 2 words in any order. So right now you can do it either way I have described above. I'll be looking at easier ways to select subject/body like maybe a dropdown.

The problem is that the search wants you to have the option to search for say "OS" in the subject and "35" in the body. If we do a dropdown you are limited to all or none subject or body. this way is more flexible where you can preface any term by subject:keyword and/or subject:body for complete control

FYI...subjects automatically carry more weight when just searching like OS 35 with no parameters. If you have order by relevance which is default unless coming from a thread or forum search subject hits should come up first. I will be playing with weights too over the coming days to get things tuned up.

marc

Thanks Marc, I may get to where I can search again. I did not type the colon after subject. I either didn't see it or thought it was separating subject and colon. Anyway, as stated above, thanks for your help and I'll figure it out.

Everyone should think of this and use it like the very familiar google. The difference is we pull data in directly and up to date (indexed every 6 hours) whereas google could not spider/index our pages this fast or deep.

I may make an alternate display temlate which looks more like the old search results. Many people are used to the google style results which seem to have worked well for searching if you consider googles growth.