Improved Search Features

[60 T-Bird]

Why when i search do I get this message?

"The search term you specified (air) is under the minimum word length (4) and therefore will not be found. Please make this term longer. If this term contains a wildcard, please make this term more specific".

[YellowRose]

Search

Try doing your search with " " around it. Such as "oil filters". Or whatever it is you are searching for. We realize that our Search engine is not the greatest, but it will work.

[simplyconnected]

Martin, as Ray noted, our search engine is not very good. I know some of the rules but not all. One restriction is, the word needs at least four letters UNLESS you use the asterisk or quotes. Ray's example will produce posts with OIL or FILTERS, and OIL FILTERS. * is a wildcard which represents any number of letters.

Example:

• 'oil pan' produces that same message. Evidently the search looks at the first word, 'oil' and determines it is too short.
• 'oilpan' produces results for that word, not 'oil pan'.
• 'oil*' returns real examples with 'oils' or 'oiler' or 'oiling', etc., somewhere in the post.

Try it.

Here's another example: cam*
When you search, pick a thread with like six posts. Then hit Control-F, which means, 'find'. In the 'find box' type cam and hit enter. Now, scroll down and see where all the examples of 'cam..' are used.

[60 T-Bird]

Thanx Dave...Ray's suggestion worked. I was looking up air conditioning. All is good.
The other forum I am on is for sailboats called http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/
They have ads for non-members so I think that pays for the upgrades. I'm sure it's a major PITA changing over though.

[dgs]

Go to Google.com and put this in the search field:

site:www.squarebirds.org air

That will give you all pages at squarebirds.org with "air" in them (over 3,000!).

[Tbird1044]

What a great idea Doug. Good way to get around the limitations of our search engine. Why didn't I think of that???

Nyles

[YellowRose]

Search

Doug, what a great idea! We never thought of using that technique in Google search to come up with things like that! I hope a lot of our users see this and put it to good use! That gives us another way to search on this Forum! Thanks very much for posting this!

[dgs]

Your welcome. The format works on any site:

site:[URL] [search term]

I use it frequently on sites with no search or a poor search function.