Search Problems

[Nielo]

Thanks Pigro, it just goes to show how difficult it is even when you know it's there, who posted it, it's full title and have a good knowledge of internet searches.

For some new member, who is not expert at using these things it is well nigh impossible.

I think this shows that although this site is packed with wonderful information it is, in fact, very difficult to retrieve. This is a software problem that Ronald is stuck with I think but it does also illustrate the point that active members are the most valuable resource and should be cherished and encouraged.

[chrisnotton]

Originally Posted by pigro

well I cheated a bit ...

I first chose 'advanced search' from the search drop down. Then I searched for 'comune' using the 'search title only' option, searching all open forums (with "child forums" checked too) and specified results to be ordered by relevance and shown as threads (not posts) which limits the number of results to a more manageable amount. That only gave a few results (and not the one Chris wanted).

I happened to remember that Marc had been involved in that thread, so I repeated the same search but this time I also entered Marc into the user field (with 'excact match' checked) but all other criteria as before.

That gave no results at all, so I then changed from 'search titles only' to 'search entire posts' - which returned quite a few threads, but the one we were looking for was on the first page of results.

so, basically it's a pile of pants & doesn't at all do what it says on the tin, as the word 'comune' WAS in the title but it wasn't returned by a 'search titles only' search.

NOTE however that in this case a google search would have worked (if Chris had spelled comune correctly with one 'm' instead of two ... albeit it returned a link to the archive rather than the live forum:
site:italymag.co.uk "a tale of two comunes" - Google Search

.. .and entering "tale of two comunes" in the google search on the site returned the thread as its 3rd result.

Thanks! That was the one I wanted. I did try several different spellings of "comune" without any luck. I have now subscribed to the thread, as I will to anything of interest I couldn't remember anything other than "a tale of two somethings" A "tale of two" in the thread title should have been enough to have searched it sucessfully I would have hoped!

It is a right ****** though. There is so much good useful stuff on here but it is so hard to find.

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