How to use Search function effectively

[Donut]

Even from the main menu, or the Advanced Search page, I seem to get no replies, even when I know the subject is out there, I'm just not sure which forum (fora?) it's in.

 

[George Wallace]

This is also a reason we so often harp on correct Spelling and Grammar.  So that people doing a SEARCH will be able to find what they are looking for.  Now people also have to try to figure out how someone else may have spelled words wrong, when doing their search. 

 

[3rd Herd]

This is also a reason we so often harp on correct Spelling and Grammar.  So that people doing a SEARCH will be able to find what they are looking for.  Now people also have to try to figure out how someone else may have spelled words wrong, when doing their search. 

I have to agree with George here big time. But you can also learn to search "out of the box". Not all search engines are efficient as Google, try using the DND search engine to search out something from 1920 for a real ride in misery. To many have either forgotten how to look for information or have never been taught in this age of a couple of key strokes.

 

[Yrys]

Somebody made a post asking for information a few days ago about the
Canadain army. A mod answer with the rainbow post, and said that he could
also tried search, but doubt that he would have much luck with it.

I've tried Canadain, there is 5 pages    !

Édith : http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/58816.0.html

 

[Mike Baker]

I've tried Canadain, there is 5 pages    !

That is sad. +1 for George.

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Yrys, to be fair, a good search ("life in the forces" or "life as a recruit") would likely yield more manageable results.

The search function overall can be improved, in fact there are features built in to the software to raise it's accuracy. The problem is that requires us to build (and maintain) an index of all searchable terms, and that takes a lot of horsepower. We used to have an index, but it simply grew too large, causing the odd site problem.

I'm going to soon gear up a project to get us on completely new hardware, and that increased capacity will allow us to enable a few more features, such as search indexes.

 

[Mike Baker]

I'm going to soon gear up a project to get us on completely new hardware, and that increased capacity will allow us to enable a few more features, such as search indexes.

For those of you who can't tell, that means subscribe and buy swag  ;D

 

[warspite]

Personally I've always liked the search function here once I figured out that it only searches a certain part of the forum.

 

[brian_k]

So I was hoping someone could pass on a few tips to help making using 'search' a little bit easier.

ex.
Perform a seach for married in uniform and I get a bunch of results for the word "in". I then search again without the word "in" and get more unrelated topics. Then I tried military wedding, which gave some relevent results after about 20 unrelated topics.

This was just an example but you can see how it applies to other searches. Is there any way to search more efficiently?

 

[Rodahn]

Try placing the phrase what you are looking for in quotations ie: "married in uniform". That way it searches for the phrase rather than individual words.

 

[McG]

also ensure your search criteria is looking for all the words as opposed to any of the words.