search engine issues

[JFaughn]

I see posts complaining about using search engine 1st , before posting
If I used the search 10 times I am lucky to get 1 answer , just now I wanted to look for a post talking about Fleetguard bypass filters , I used several combinations of , fleetguard by pass oil filters , the search eng tells me not enough words [ 3 min ] , many other times I search and go through 3 pages of 30 pages to find answer & can not , is there an upgrade coming , or forget the search engine ?
Rant over .
Thanks John

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Have you read the help screen for the search engine? The link for it is right below where you type in your words. For your search here's what I did:

In the keywords field I typed:

+fleetguard +bypass +filter

That means that it will only return search results that have all three words in it (the + before the word means that word HAS to be in the result or it won't come up)

Then I told it to show results as posts instead of the default of threads. If you have it show as threads it could have fleetguard in one persons post, bypass in another, and filter in another. By setting it to show results as posts it will only return individual posts that have all three words in it. That search returned 231 posts that have all three words fleetguard, bypass, and filter in them.

Another way to search for it would be by typing:

"fleetguard bypass filter"

in the keywords field and that will only return results that have those three words in exactly that order (that's what the quotes around it means). That search returns 6 posts that have exactly those three words in that order.

Remember - computers are stupid, they can't figure out what you want to see, you have to tell them explicitly what you want to see. The help screen for the search explains all of this in detail. There is also a post in the TDR Website/Roundtable FAQ forum that gives that information as well. The search engine is extremely powerful and if you use it properly you will find pretty much anything you want.

BTW, it did not tell you that you did not have enough words. What it told you is:

The search term you specified (by) is under the minimum word length (3) and therefore will not be found. Please make this term longer.

It is telling you that one of your words is too short. The word BY (it even tells you what word) is under the minimum word length (3 characters). The search engine doesn't have any words in it under 3 characters and will reject your search if there are any words under 3 characters in it and will tell you what words those are. Even if it did have words under 3 characters searching on "by pass" would not get you to bypass filters at all because bypass is a single word - not two words. The computer isn't going to know to take your space out - it would be searching for the words by and pass and you'd never find what your looking for.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

BTW, I just changed that statement to:

One of the search terms you specified (by) is under the minimum word length of 3 characters long and therefore will not be found. Please make this term longer.

I've been trying to come up with something better than what it was saying because many people were confused by it. Hopefully this will come across better. If you have a better suggestion let me know. I've asked that of everyone who confused it as too few word and noone came up with better wording.

 

[JFaughn]

Steve , thanks for your efforts , some times communications can frustrate more that anything , except when working with trucks & cars , where I can see how they did it the wrong way , so often .
John

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

I've found the searching on short phrases, or even single words works well if the word(s) used are in quotes - such as "Fleetguard"...

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Putting quotes around a single word will make no difference at all. Where some of the confusion comes from I think is that if you put more than one word in there like:

fleetguard bypass filter

It will return anything that has any one of those words in it - so your not refining your search by adding more words, your expanding it. If however you put a + before each word then you'd be refining it. Really, if everyone would take the time to read the help screen for the search they'd be FAR ahead of the game.

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

Putting quotes around a single word will make no difference at all. Where some of the confusion comes from I think is that if you put more than one word in there like:



fleetguard bypass filter



It will return anything that has any one of those words in it - so your not refining your search by adding more words, your expanding it. If however you put a + before each word then you'd be refining it. Really, if everyone would take the time to read the help screen for the search they'd be FAR ahead of the game.

My comment was related to search strings containing words with 1 or 2 letters - such as:



"what it is" will give 500 PAGES of posts with that string, but just what it is, will give the error that there are words in the string with too few letters.



Unfortunately, it's sometimes NEEDED to include 1 or 2 letter words in a string to get the desired results - and using the quotes accomplishes that goal...

 

[Dodgentwo]

Just curious why the engine was made so difficult to use? Why is there a need to put + in front of things? And why is it you cant search for words 3 letters or less? There are several things I try to look for and cant. GSK, CAD, AFC, ABS. Kinda frustrating

 

[Dodgentwo]

Sorry didnt know we had to have a users manual or read a special page just to use a searc engine. Guess some of us just aren't as smart as all you mods

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

You can use three letter words - all three letter words are included in the index. It says "the minimum word length is 3 letters". It's two letter words that you can't. vBulletin uses MySQL which uses index files for searches. 99% of vBulletin forums have a minimum word length of 4 characters. The TDR has gone to great expense and effort to have equipment sufficient to handle 3 letter searches and to modify the software to allow it because so many of our terms are three letters long. Keep in mind that our post database alone is 2Gb in size and has nearly 2,000,000 posts in it. If two letter words were included in the index it would be searching the entire database any time you did a search - imagine how long that would take, especially if say 20 people were searching simultaneously.

The + - * < > and " modifiers are also a part of MySQL. They allow you to refine your searches to find exactly what you want. You can do a search without the modifiers but you are searching on nearly 2 million posts so you are going to get LOTS of results. By learning to use the tools provided you can refine those searches to find exactly what you want in that database of nearly 2 million posts and that's why we've taken the extra effort of providing you a help screen for how to use the search (that didn't come with vBulletin, I wrote it).

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

There are several things I try to look for and cant. GSK, CAD, AFC, ABS. Kinda frustrating

Here's are examples of ways to find that information:



GSK is a governor spring kit which is for the 12 valve engine so I put GSK in the keyword field and specified the 12 valve engine and drivetrain forum. That returned 500 results all of which have GSK in them (which is the maximum it will return - you need to refine the search if you want less).



A search on CAD and changing it to show results as posts gives 500 results as well. Here's a selection of some of the sentences from the first screen full of results:

"My 02 has the CAD front axel. "



"actually even as early as 2001. 5 there were trucks without the CAD unit. "



"Not to rain on your parade but after 2002. 5 models ALL 2500 and up 4x4 NO LONGER have a CAD (Central Axle Disconnect) thus rendering the cable/vacuum option no longer worthy. "



"The spider gears turn all the time, but there is no load on the ring and pinion if the CAD has disconnected. "



" Do you have a CAD on your 2001? "

A search on AFC and showing results as posts also returns 500:



"I have a stock headgasket and no studs, and run 50lbs quiet often, and have hooked to the sled about 7 times with 25* timing, BIG injectors, LC DV's, no fuel plate, and gutted AFC and my gasket still in place. "

"Truck has a 12 plate pushed forward and a gutted afc. "



"The AFC or aneroid is a wonderful tool if you know how it works and use it to your advantage, "



"A stiffer AFC spring might make more of that travel useful?"

Now if you were trying to find information on adjusting the AFC I would do a search on:



+afc +adjust*



and change it to show results as posts so that it was looking for both those terms in a single post instead of in the thread as a whole. By putting the asterisk at the end of adjust it will return results with adjusting, adjusted, adjustment, etc. Doing that search returned 500 posts with these phrases taken from the first page of results:

"my idea for this was i have been thinking of all the little things you can do to gain a little extra power. things like adjusting the afc, removing the afc spring, different fuel plates, the rack plug, etc. i know a fair amount of these things but thought a thread with all these things in there would be good able to awnser any ones ?s on what how where when why. so lets talk 12v"



"The cough is turbo bark. Not a problem unless it's excessive. A stock '96 does have some turbo lag. Not really a problem, but it can be reduced by doing some adjusting on the AFC. "



"Like everyone said, fuel plate forward, afc forward and tighten up the starwheel. You can adjust smoke levels from there. "



"Afc adjustments made some difference. Then I pulled the afc and found my smoke. "



"Slide the fuel plate all the way forward (or backward; I don't remember!) Then adjust the AFC housing to allow the desired amount of soot. "

Now on the ABS since you have a 2nd gen I did a search on:



+abs +brakes



changed it to show results as posts so those terms had to be in the same post and restricted it to just the 2nd gen forums. That also returned 500 posts all about ABS brakes and if you were looking for lets say information on the controller specifically you could search on:



+abs brake brakes +controller



By leaving the + off the brake and brakes both those terms don't have to be in the post but one or the other does. The + before ABS and controller means those terms have to be there. By searching on those terms, showing results as posts, and restricting it to the 2nd gen forums I got 28 results. Here is a selection of those results:

" I believe that the CAB (Controller, Antilock Brake) is seeing the voltage from the rear sensor drop below the minimum threshold, thus causing it to think the rear wheels have suddenly stopped... "



"Woke up in the middle of the night and read the Haynes manual and decided to start by unplugging the C. A. B. (controller-anti lock brake) under the dash. Problem Solved!"



"You'd need to put them on the output side of the abs controller between it and the brakes. "



"I am keeping the failed ABS controller and need to know who (highway safety) to send it to so there may be a recall performed on this part. "



"SO, on my truck, I unplugged the ABS harness at the sensor on top of the differential, and wired a 1800 ohm resistor across the leads to fool the ABS controller into thinking the circuit was still operating - no ABS light on the dash to worry about, and the brakes then operated like "normal", non-ABS brakes - a VAST improvement in effectiveness and predictability!"



"The ABS warning lamp is only used to alert the driver of RWAL malfunctions and to identify Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs) stored in the Controller Antilock Brake (CAB) memory. "

So as you can see you can get the results without using the modifiers but if you do use the modifiers you can refine those results to get to the information that your really looking for without have to go through page after page of posts that are irrelevant to what you are trying to find. The search engine here is VERY versatile and can be tuned to give you exactly what your looking for and there really isn't much to it if you look at the examples given on the help screen - we write the help screens and the FAQ's to help you guys get the maximum benefit out of the site, truly we do!

 

[JFaughn]

Theres a phrase that comes to mind , can't live with them , can't live without .
Depending on mood or what I'm doing , I wander how I got by with out computers & maybe life would be better with out .
And there is , catch 22 .