Effective Searching Techniques

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I'm a semi-regular here, and I know that there are scads of old threads in the archives, but the search tool fails for me most of the time. Could someone give me some pointers on how to effectively search for relevant old threads?

Also, could the thread content please devolve into pictures of owls and various Village People as soon as that initial information is shared? Thanks!

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Tuesday, 11 April 2006 21:05 (twenty years ago)

Wherever you can, search using the "Thread Title" box in Advanced Search. It's much faster/less likely to give up than the full-text "Keywords" search. It also allows you search for words shorter than four letters. Bear in mind that the Thread Title search is an exact phrase search. Don't try to combine words unless they'd appear next to each other in the thread title (eg. "Los Angeles").

If you have to do full-text searching:

- Try not to search on more than one word at once.
- Try to think of the most unusual word that would be contained in a thread. The more common the word, the more likely you are to either overload the server or hit the limit of 100 search results.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 11 April 2006 21:14 (twenty years ago)

1) THREAD TITLE
2) USE THE GOOGLEBOX
3) GIVE UP

― Fight the Real Enemy -- Tasti D-Lite (ex machina), Tuesday, 11 April 2006 21:15 (twenty years ago)

4) START A THREAD TITLED "I CAN'T BELIEVE WE DON'T HAVE A THREAD ABOUT [X} YET!??!"

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Tuesday, 11 April 2006 21:20 (twenty years ago)

5) Ned Raggett pwns u

― Fight the Real Enemy -- Tasti D-Lite (ex machina), Tuesday, 11 April 2006 21:23 (twenty years ago)

Thanks!

This seems like it would be helpful in the FAQ.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Tuesday, 11 April 2006 21:28 (twenty years ago)

O RLY?

― StanM (StanM), Tuesday, 11 April 2006 21:31 (twenty years ago)

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