Searching techniques

[Daniel D.]

[Don H.]

Re: Searching techniques

Daniel
Some of your questions about searching are answered under the topic How to Search Threads and Forums in the FAQs that you should click on in the smallest tool bar above, underneath the club banner. I have copied/pasted that info below for you. Search, (the box with the magnifying glass next to it) Advanced Search and Search this Forum are all explained. What is not explained is Google Custom Search and must leave that to someone else to explain. Read carefully the search info that Rich Mozzetta provided below. It can be very helpful to you in getting positive results in your search efforts. Good luck, Don

How do I search for something?To quickly find a thread or post of interest anywhere on the bulletin board, click on the "Search" link in the navigation bar at the top of most forum pages. Then, type in the keyword or phrase you wish to search for, and select either "Show Threads" or "Show Posts" to view the results. By selecting posts, you will be shown only the actual post in which the search word appears.
New in the upgraded TDB is the ability to do Boolean searches.
Boolean Search

• Basic Boolean Search Operators - AND
  • Using AND narrows a search by combining terms; it will retrieve documents that use both the search terms you specify, as in this example:
  • Brakes AND 1962
  
  
  • Basic Boolean Search Operators - OR
  
  
  • Using OR broadens a search to include results that contain either of the words you type in. OR is a good tool to use when there are several common spellings or synonyms of a word, as in this example:
  • 1966 OR 1967 OR 1968
  
  
  • Basic Boolean Search Operators - NOT
  
  
  • Using NOT will narrow a search by excluding certain search terms. NOT retrieves documents that contain one, but not the other, of the search terms you enter, as in this example:
  • Brakes NOT Shoes
  
  For more control over the search, select "Advanced Search" from the drop-down box. The advanced search page allows you to restrict your search to individual forums, find posts or threads by user, or return results based on tags (?). There are also options to find posts from a certain date, or threads with a certain number of replies.
  How do I search a specific forum or thread?
  If you are browsing a forum, you can quickly search for a thread or post within it by clicking on the "Search this forum" link near the top of the page (it's above the list of threads). You can also search for individual posts within a thread by clicking on the "Search this Thread" link at the top of any thread view page.
  Search functions and how to use them.
  * asterick — is a “wildcard” and will find anything before or after lt.
  • Caution using an * before, or after a keyword can slow down the search as it will find every instance that contains the key word following or leading the *. Search for *vette will find all instances of Corvette as well as just vette.
  “” quotes — are used to phrase search and will find only the exact information that is enclosed by “”.
  • “big brake” will find all instances of “big brake” without finding all instances of “brake”.
  Do not use single quote marks ' as this will cause problems opening the threads or posts that you do find.
  () parenthesis — groups words or phrases between the parenthesis (“first search term”) AND search_term
  ? question mark — is a “wildcard” and used for filling such as carbon fib?? – search results will find carbon fiber or carbon fibre
  
  Boolean Search — can be used to narrow or widen searching logic.
  
  AND — narrows search and retrieves information containing all of the words separated by AND
  OR — widens search and retrieves information containing any of the words separated by OR
  NOT — narrows search, excludes information not containing the term following NOT
  Search tips per Richard Mozzetta (13499) search experiments
  Example searches:
  "*L78*" or "*396*", lt1* or lt-1 or lt1% or lt-1
  Note: Blue Boldfaced identify different keywords used in the search strings
  1. First search experiment — Quoted strings and parentheses. Be careful here when using complex searches. Results can be misleading.
  Search, selecting Titles Only.......
  "wheel bearing" AND (*C1* OR C-1* OR "C 1 " OR 195* OR 196*) NOT (1963 OR 1964 OR 1965 OR 1966 OR 1967 OR 1968 OR 1969)
  Result:
  Type: Forums, Posts; Keyword(s): "wheel bearing", (*C1* or "C-1*" or "C 1 " or 195* or 196*), not (1963 or 1964 or 1965 or 1966 or 1967 or 1968 or 1969)
  Results — too many Titles(3360+) and they all did NOT have the phrase "wheel bearing" in them. Most had neither of the words! It Resulted with "wheel bearing" in the Result list, but it obviously didn't get the correct results. I suspect some vBulletin search software limitations or improper syntax in my keywords or ?
  2. Next search string experiment — parentheses enclosing "wheel bearing".....
  ("wheel bearing") AND (*C1* OR C-1* OR "C 1 " OR 195* OR 196*) NOT (1963 OR 1964 OR 1965 OR 1966 OR 1967 OR 1968 OR 1969)
  Result:
  Type: Forums, Posts; Keyword(s): ("wheel, bearing"), (*C1* or "C-1*" or "C 1 " or 195* or 196*), not (1963 or 1964 or 1965 or 1966 or 1967 or 1968 or 1969)
  Results — listed 2 titles, both had proper results with the phrase "wheel bearing" in them.
  3. Next I then tried this — AND function and parentheses
  ("wheel AND bearing") AND (*C1* OR C-1* OR "C 1 " OR 195* OR 196*) NOT (1963 OR 1964 OR 1965 OR 1966 OR 1967 OR 1968 OR 1969)
  
  Result:
  Type: Forums, Posts; Keyword(s): ("wheel, bearing"), (*C1* or "C-1*" or "C 1 " or 195* or 196*), not (1963 or 1964 or 1965 or 1966 or 1967 or 1968 or 1969)
  Results — listed 2 titles, both had proper results with the phrase "wheel bearing" in them.
  4. Next — AND function and parentheses, no quotes
  (wheel AND bearing) AND (*C1* OR C-1* OR "C 1 " OR 195* OR 196*) NOT (1963 OR 1964 OR 1965 OR 1966 OR 1967 OR 1968 OR 1969)
  Result:
  Type: Forums, Posts; Keyword(s): (wheel, bearing), (*C1* or "C-1*" or "C 1 " or 195* or 196*), not (1963 or 1964 or 1965 or 1966 or 1967 or 1968 or 1969)
  Results — listed 9 Titles, they had interesting results. Some with the phrase "wheel bearing" in them, some with just "bearing".
  ====
  It appears that parentheses will be your friend when searching here on the TDB. Use wisely!
  

[Richard M.]

Re: Searching techniques

Daniel,

The search function can be cumbersome and often yields too much information, and quite often not enough. The biggest drawback is that any strings under 4 characters are ignored. So L79 is ignored. There is a workaround using the *(wilcard). e.g L79*. This will look for L79 and any character, including the "space" character. So it will find L79. Note also that some use the string "L-79" in their posts so you want to include that search string too. Note the " 's surrounding it. This will search specifically for exact match between the " 's. Since it's 4 characters it will find it.

Parentheses will help delineate the search too, as I experimented with long ago. Also note the spaces in the example. Spaces are important.

e.g.
( ( L79* ) OR ( "L-79" ) ) AND rebuild

I just did the above search but it didn't yield much info. In this case it may be a good idea to create a new Thread with L79 Rebuild Help or similar. I'm sure you'll get some replies from the folks here.

I think the "Google Custom Search" is best for the ncrs.org site itself. I have never used it for the TDB searches.

The TDB Basic Search function will search all titles and posts, of All Open Forums both in the Archives and in the recent threads. It allows Boolean searching too. It's good for quick basic searches. Note it will always show results from both the Titles and Entire Posts of each thread.

Advanced Search allows specific functions such as a specific username and additional options for date specific searches etc.

Note the box next to Search String. It can search for Title only or Entire Posts only. Selecting Titles Only can be easier for quick results.

Single Content Type allows you to specify a single particular search type database, but best to use the default.....Posts. This will search all threads in the TDB, Recent and Archived, in All Forums. But there is one important feature in the Options section which allows the search results to be shown as "Posts" or "Threads". At the bottom of the page note "Show Results as"

On very large threads this can be very handy. Selecting "Show Results" as "Posts" will yield the search string results to be shown in those specific posts in the thread and display just those posts. This way you don't have to peruse through many pages of text in a very large thread with dozens or sometimes even hundreds of posts from the replies. Your string will appear in the actual post it found it in.

Multiple Content Type allows you to specify multiple type database types. Note that by default it selects all of them. I never change that. It also
allows date specific searches in the Options section, but it doesn't have the "Show Results" as "Posts" options as above in Single Content Type.

One last search I tired was in Advanced Search, Single Content Type, engine rebuild , and selected Titles Only. Many results but you may find some info in there.

Rich