# Search facility



## timpeac

Hello.

I'm sure we'd all agree that the search facility is fantastically useful in these forums. Also, it is a requirement to have a search on a topic you are going to be posting on so that we don't get duplicates. As the forums get older and bigger this is going to become more and more important.

I was wondering therefore if there could be some way to improve the search facility. I wanted to find this thread -

*Language evolves - for better or worse!*

Since I was fairly sure that was its name I put in exactly that, but I had hundreds of hits. I quickly realised that the _more _words you put in the_ less_ focussed the search is, right?

For example I with the above I got any title with "for" in! Of course, it is easy to leave such words out so I tried just 

*Language evolves better worse*

Still loads of hits, so I got rid of "language" and eventually found the thread I wanted.

Is there no way to prioritise hits so that the posts with most words matched come first?

Hopefully you're going to be able to come back to me and say "yes you can already do this" and I just don't know how yet!! If not that would be really handy.

By the way, if someone has asked this question before, I did check first but got too many hits to check all the way through... 

Thanks


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## Jana337

Hi Tim,

your suggestion is certainly valid but when I repeated your search with _Language evolves - for better or worse_ wrapped into "", I ended up just with this

Jana


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## lsp

timpeac said:
			
		

> Hello.
> 
> I'm sure we'd all agree that the search facility is fantastically useful in these forums. Also, it is a requirement to have a search on a topic you are going to be posting on so that we don't get duplicates. As the forums get older and bigger this is going to become more and more important.
> 
> I was wondering therefore if there could be some way to improve the search facility. I wanted to find this thread -
> 
> *Language evolves - for better or worse!*
> 
> Since I was fairly sure that was its name I put in exactly that, but I had hundreds of hits. I quickly realised that the _more _words you put in the_ less_ focussed the search is, right?
> 
> For example I with the above I got any title with "for" in! Of course, it is easy to leave such words out so I tried just
> 
> *Language evolves better worse*
> 
> Still loads of hits, so I got rid of "language" and eventually found the thread I wanted.
> 
> Is there no way to prioritise hits so that the posts with most words matched come first?
> 
> Hopefully you're going to be able to come back to me and say "yes you can already do this" and I just don't know how yet!! If not that would be really handy.
> 
> By the way, if someone has asked this question before, I did check first but got too many hits to check all the way through...
> 
> Thanks


When you have a lot of words that are not likely to be specific to your thread, you are right that you get more results. That's when the Google search in the lower left of each page trumps the forum Search up top.


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## timpeac

Jana337 said:
			
		

> Hi Tim,
> 
> your suggestion is certainly valid but when I repeated your search with _Language evolves - for better or worse_ wrapped into "", I ended up just with this
> 
> Jana


 
Ah, thanks Jana but most time you aren't going to know precisely wording to wrap in "". However, thanks, in this instance I could have done as you've suggested.

As a general suggestion it still stand though - although thansk ISP I hadn't thought to use the google window at the bottom.


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## Jana337

timpeac said:
			
		

> Ah, thanks Jana but most time you aren't going to know precisely wording to wrap in "". However, thanks, in this instance I could have done as you've suggested.
> 
> As a general suggestion it still stand though - although thansk ISP I hadn't thought to use the google window at the bottom.



Fair enough, wrapping in is too restrictive. Let me suggest something else:
The assumption is that you know that the title of the thread you are after contains "language" and "evolves" and maybe, but not necessarily, some other words.

The search search machine integrated in the forum gives you these 61 results (if you don't forget to choose "Search Titles Only"). These are threads whose titles contain either "language(s)" or "evolves".

To obtain threads with both "language" and "evolves" in the title, you have to search for +language +evolves
The result is more than satisfactory, isn't it? I think Mike explained this in CS. I will give you the link if I manage to locate it.

Hope this helps.

Jana


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## lsp

Jana337 said:
			
		

> I think Mike explained this in CS. I will give you the link if I manage to locate it.


Might this be it?


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## Jana337

lsp said:
			
		

> Might this be it?


Thanks, you were faster.  Yes, I meant that post.

Jana


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## timpeac

Thanks both - the +language +evolves seems to do the trick.

Thanks a lot.


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