Empower yourself: forum searching demystified

[Scott Tichenor]

"Search sucks!"
"Search doesn't work!"

and my favorite:

"You have to be a computer nerd to search this site!"

First two, correct... if you approach searching incorrectly--provide bad information and bad results will be returned. 3rd statement, simply wrong.

Allow me to debunk a few myths and show you a few basics, knowing, no matter how hard I try and how successful it is capable of, some of you will continue to cling to your belief. It's really not that hard, but you'll try to convince me it is.

Rule #1: skip the search forum at the top of every forum page and click Advanced Searching, unless you're searching for something that has just been posted today. Here's why: that search checks the 1.15+ million posts, yep, including all of the nonsense everyone has posted, so unless you have a very unusual term, you're going to get pages of results. "Oh, right, Advanced Search," I can visualize eyes rolling back into the head.

Confusing:

Search Single Content Type or Search Multiple Content Types.



Stick with Search Single Content Type. It means just what it says. Means you're going to search just one type of posting (default, forum posts). If you want to search blogs, Groups, other areas of the forum, those options are there. You wish to search multiple types of postings at all at once (blogs, blog comments, posts, Groups, etc.), then switch to Search Multiple Content Types. We almost never use the latter.

Rule #2: What you're looking for is a lot easier to find if it was contained within the thread Title, and we strongly recommend you search Thread Titles first. This is why we cringe when we see threads titled poorly, "Look at this!" and "Wow..." and "This will be interesting to watch," (almost a guarantee it won't be). Useless clutter. Search entire posts at your own risk, and understand that you're likely searching between 50-100 million word/word combinations. Or more. Oh.

Rule #3: You don't have to fill out every option on the Advanced Search page. You only search by User Name if you know the name of the person that posted what you're looking for--rarely necessary. You only limit the date when it was posted if you want to (we often do to filter out results we know weren't posted 7 years ago). If you have over 500 posts on this forum and have never taken 5 minutes to read and attempt to understand the Advanced Searching then you're likely asking a lot of questions... They may get answered, they may not.

Rule #4: Less is more. If you're searching for a thread on Gilchrist mandolins, don't add the word mandolin to the search. Think about how many times that word appears. Would you go onto a baking forum and search for "baking cookies?" This is true for almost any searching from any search function. Throw in the kitchen sink--too many words--and you're going to get a lot of information back you didn't want.

Rule #5: dispense with useless terms: a, I, is, in, the, an, was, etc. See Rule #4.

In closing: search is one of the most difficult human/computer problems. There's a good reason Google makes billions of dollars. It's because they've taught software and hardware to be smarter than the people searching. Forum search functions are no replacement for Google, but they can be used quite effectively and they do work. I'm happy to answer some questions and will do my best to answer by example if necessary.

Empower yourself. The web is a lot more fun if you know how to search effectively--that applies to everywhere, not just here. What is it they say, "teach a man to fish..."

[MikeEdgerton]

A subject near and dear to my heart

[Scott Tichenor]

Heh, knew you'd be out here Mike, but you're a computer nerd!

Story from my last day job at a local University that shall remain unnamed. I'd just started and one of my first jobs was to order and install a Google search appliance and set it up, etc. About two weeks in my boss stormed into my office flush in the face and proclaimed, "I've lost my Google!"

Me: "well, let's see if we can help you find it."

Somehow I lasted another few years there before going self-employed for good.

[Scott Tichenor]

In creating this information I'd forgotten that long ago I excluded the word mandolin and mandolins from search altogether, so there's a bit of protection there. Still, a good habit to get into leaving out terms that are overly redundant or don't add information to the search process.

[AnitaM]

Great info Scott. I am a huge proponent of using the Search function - have gotten many of my questions answered without adding another thread to the forum. Can you help us out with some ways to search for multiple words? I generally will put my words in quotations and add the + sign between words, but I'm not always sure that's the right way. Appreciate your help.

[MikeEdgerton]

Speaking of Google, a great way to search the cafe is to use Google's site search function. Enter a search like this:

Keyword(s) site:mandolincafe.com

An example would be:

KM-21 site:mandolincafe.com

That would give you every thread with KM-21 in the thread. It would look like this.

You can also use multiple search terms. That would look like this:

Bill Monroe Guitar site:mandolincafe.com

That would yield these results.

This obviously will work on any site, not just the cafe.

[Scott Tichenor]

Great info Scott. I am a huge proponent of using the Search function - have gotten many of my questions answered without adding another thread to the forum. Can you help us out with some ways to search for multiple words? I generally will put my words in quotations and add the + sign between words, but I'm not always sure that's the right way. Appreciate your help.

I'd like to answer you this evening but it's not going to happen appears. Long day here and I'm the parent of a teenager. Life can be challenging. Like to find an official list of the options from the makers of the software and will work on that tomorrow vs. shooting from the hip with my own favorites.

Mike's examples of course work, and they should not be underestimated, but it's not necessary to use Google to find information on this forum even though I'll admit to it on occasion. I use those same tricks to find information sites like amazon, CNN and others cannot find with their own searches--surprise. As I said, there's a reason why Google is the king of $earch. People think hackers are super geeks that have secret technical tricks up their sleeve, and many do, but the reality is the best use Google to find what they need. It's all there, trust me, and I've enough to know.

I know we're getting way beyond the question but for the fellow geeks (not necessary to search this forum!) read Google Hacking for Penetration Testers to get your eyes opened.

[Scott Tichenor]

AnitaM, Boolean searching is active. Again, I think title searching (Advanced Search) yields far greater results. For many searches there's just too much information to use the default search function which is going to look at all posts first.

A few examples that work with our search:

asterisk use - works* returns works or workshops/search* returns search, searches, seraching
OR searches - search for Tichenor OR Beimborn in titles returns threads with either in the title
AND & NOT searching (don't use + and - as substitutes)
Phrase searching by using quotations

Here's a key. If you want to see what your Boolean is returning, always check the breadcrumb left by the search to be sure your instructions were obeyed. See attached here:



By the way, I found a thread from some time back, plucked out a long sentence, pasted it into default search and it found the thread and only that thread, which itself is pretty entertaining about search. To find it, search on:

I was researching some ideas and looking for pertinent answers using

Now, all this said, Boolean searching is a good reason why Google was such a huge success. I'd guess 99.9% of the searches here and in Google people don't use Boolean. That was about the rate I observed when I was running Google search appliances for two former employers. The concept behind Boolean makes many people insane even though there's really not much to it. So, go in peace and Boolean away.

[MikeEdgerton]

IF Boolean Search works well THEN people should use it ELSE maybe they won't find what they are searching FOR.

[Jim Garber]

Speaking of Google, a great way to search the cafe is to use Google's site search function.

I use Google sometimes too but find that often I do not need the site function. Mandolin Cafe comes up first almost always with any mandolin-related questions. That way I sometimes find the things I was looking for on the subject on other sites.

[John Duncan]

Speaking of Google, a great way to search the cafe is to use Google's site search function. Enter a search like this:

Keyword(s) site:mandolincafe.com

An example would be:

KM-21 site:mandolincafe.com

That would give you every thread with KM-21 in the thread. It would look like this.

You can also use multiple search terms. That would look like this:

Bill Monroe Guitar site:mandolincafe.com

That would yield these results.

This obviously will work on any site, not just the cafe.

Is there any other way? I like letting google do all the work.

[MikeEdgerton]

Is there any other way? I like letting google do all the work.

John, I'm trying to figure out how you could make it any easier to have Google search the site other than entering keywords you were looking for and the site command. Now, if you want to search the entire Internet for your keywords you might be able to dig all the cafe stuff out but you'd still have to do some of the work. You could then omit the site command.

[Scott Tichenor]

Here's an example of some deep search that paid off nicely today. For fun I started throwing some Loar serial numbers from the Mandolin Archive into an advanced search and requested it show the exact posts. Did probably 40 and in the process found pictures of two Loars in the Archive that had to image record. Guessing if I went through every single serial number I'd find several more.

Here's one I found.

[Pete Jenner]

I use Google sometimes too but find that often I do not need the site function. Mandolin Cafe comes up first almost always with any mandolin-related questions. That way I sometimes find the things I was looking for on the subject on other sites.

Ditto Jim.

[BeginnerMandolinistTyler]

Most importantly, they have baking forums?

[Pete Jenner]

This is why we cringe when we see threads titled poorly, "Look at this!" and "Wow..." and "This will be interesting to watch," (almost a guarantee it won't be).

I've been one of the guilty ones here - I should know better - my only excuse ...I like to keep it entertaining.
An optional sub-heading field might be a good idea - heading for searching - sub-heading for entertaining.

[Scott Tichenor]

Made this short video showing how you can really dial in search results much better than using the default search. If we search on the single word Tonerite we get about four results on the first page with that in the title. The rest of the threads the default search is looking at every single post for that title so catches and lot of information that's of little value. If you go to Advanced search only the title the information is far more useful. Try some search terms yourself and see what you come up with. If you search something like Thile or Grisman it returns tons of threads where someone mentions them. Search the title the results are far more meaningful. This is also why we strong recommend naming your thread titles so that they can be searched on vs. "Wow," "Oh, boy," and "Stupid," etc.

To see a larger version go here. There's an all screen option there too in the lower right hand corner of the video. This video has no audio on purpose. None needed.



See, you don't have to be a computer geek to do that now, do you?

[FLATROCK HILL]

Hi Scott,

I appreciate your effort(s) to simplify the 'search' function for dull-witted non-techies like myself. I logged on to this forum this time, specifically to ask about a better search technique than I'm currently using. I was happy to see this informative thread. I must be a bit more dull-witted than most though, 'cause I still don't seem to be getting the results I would like.
Here is just one example of the issue. I would like to add a comment about my experience with DR strings. I don't want to start a new thread. I'm well aware of the many other, sometimes repetitive threads that already exist. I would like to post specifically to a thread entitled 'Regarding DR Mandolin Strings'.

So...I go to the 'Advanced Search' page and I select 'Titles Only'. The problem I'm having is that no matter how many or how few words or what combination of words (even the exact thread title) I type into the search window, I get hundreds of results with 'strings' being the only key search word that shows up.
What am I doing wrong?

Thank you,

Clark

Ok, never mind. I neglected to hit the 'single content type' page. I still don't exactly understand what that means, but it was more successful than doing it the other way. Still hundreds of results, and still the only key word used by the search engine was 'strings', but for some reason, the thread I was hunting was on the first page.

Thanks

As Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say....Never mind.