Forum Search Problems

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lastdingo

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Before you post, please try searching the forum to see if there is already a topic existing for your theme.
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I just created a topic where I can't believe there's not already a thread (the aircraft has been published Jan 2019), but I simply cannot find it with the search function.
Past experience tells me that even searching for the correct word doesn't necessarily yield the relevant thread. Is there maybe some kind of server-side plugin that could improve the search function?
Some websites add a 'google search this site' widget if their default search function doesn't satisfy.
 
lastdingo said:
Before you post, please try searching the forum to see if there is already a topic existing for your theme.
Click to expand...

I just created a topic where I can't believe there's not already a thread (the aircraft has been published Jan 2019), but I simply cannot find it with the search function.
Past experience tells me that even searching for the correct word doesn't necessarily yield the relevant thread. Is there maybe some kind of server-side plugin that could improve the search function?
Some websites add a 'google search this site' widget if their default search function doesn't satisfy.
Click to expand...

New forum uses ElasticSearch which is pretty good as a search engine, plus Google has indexed the forum pretty well. The "Google Search" plugins simply do a search on Google site like this:

okhotnik site:secretprojects.co.uk

So the "google search" plugin is totally pointless unless you don't know Google search basics.

If you search for Ochotnik you won't find anything via Google either because it's not the normal transliteration in English. It's Okhotnik. Lots of existing topics. Neither is it Suchoi, its Sukhoi.

Happy to check any other "can't find it" problems.
 

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This is an observation more than a grumble (and I may have missed something). The built-in search engine doesn't seem to have a 'not-this' function.

If I search for keyword "Minié", the 'most relevant' returns are for "Mini". ("Minié" shows up in the 23rd return but not again until a single mention on Page 4 of the returns.)

However, if I search for keywords "Minié -Mini" (or an unaccented "Minie -Mini"), I get "No results found.".

This is not a big deal since, if I Google minié site:secretprojects.co.uk, I get plenty of returns (including unaccented ones). So, problem solved for Minié. (For other names or subjects, though, it'd be nice to be able to make search returns case-sensitive.) ... Okay, enough fussing over the filigree surrounding this endlessly-astonishing forum :D
 
Screenshot_2022-03-12-13-55-13-58_3aea4af51f236e4932235fdada7d1643.jpg

I keep getting this when I search on my phone, is it something I did or something I'm doing?
 
Problems met recently
1). 'Republic' (company) search "in titles only" returns also bunch of totally off-topic threads having 'republic' in tags (but not in title)

1711654222203.png

2). An attempt to cite designation correctly in topic name like B-2A, F-117A makes them off results for topic name search for B-2 or F-117.
 
1) Yes, tags are included in search. Tags are supposed to be meaningful descriptors that help you find a topic. Someone or some people on the forum likes to do some very odd tagging. Who will ever want to search for "first republic of lithuania"? I do note it returns partial matches on tags - it might be better if it only matched exactly.

2) Yes, this is correct as the search engine doesn't understand B-2 and B-2A are the same "word". In this case, using "F-117A" in the topic is unhelpful, but you could use tags to help here.
 
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