Problems with the search since the migration

Date sort Score sort
HEChicken

HEChicken

Crowing
13 Years
Aug 12, 2009
7,552
241
396
BuCo, KS
My Coop
My Coop
Ever since the migration, I've been having issues with the search function. It used to be that when you searched on keywords, it would bring up the list of topics that met the criteria and when you clicked on the link, it would take you to the post in which those keywords were used.

Now, the list it brings up is the list of topics in which those key words are contained, except the only options seem to be to go to the first or last post of the topic. And, any time I try to do a search, the results are all topics that have hundreds of pages. I've tried everything I can think of, but the only two posts I can go to are the first or last. So I know that my keyword search is contained SOMEWHERE in those hundreds of pages (thousands of posts) but there is no indication of which page or which post contains them.

I've tried the basic search and the advanced, to no avail. I find myself leaving the forum to go and do a google search instead, because I can no longer get the information by doing a search within the forum. Is there any way to modify the search so that it will provide a link to the post that contains the information instead of just the thread?
 
If you would be so kind as to provide an example of a specific search (precise target you were looking to strike).
 
Eh - there have been so many and its been a few days now since I tried. I can't remember the specific searches I have tried in the past but suffice it to say that my searches generally have to do with the same terms that are used over and over on a chicken forum. For example, I was trying to find information about air cell size during incubation. All of those words are used over and over here, and no matter what order I tried, or even grouping words like "air cell" in quotation marks to make sure it was only finding instances where they were used together, the first two pages of results (which is as many as I looked at) were all threads with thousands of replies. And no matter what I tried, I could only get it to take me to either the first post or the last post of each thread. I did wind up doing a google search on that and found the information I was looking for right away.

The search works quite well if you are looking for information and know that a certain user posted the info. For example, if I am looking for a post that User123 made about a week ago regarding an Anatolian Shepherd. I can do an advanced search for Anatolian, the user name and the time frame, and it will come right up. But if you are searching for chicken-related information and don't have a specific user in mind, it is almost impossible to find the results, since most chicken vocabulary is used so much and it seems to default to showing the threads with the highest number of replies, instead of showing a result with only 3 replies, so I could just open the page, and CTRL-F for one of my key words.
 
O.K. Advanced search (full text/posts only - sorted by recency/descending): "air AND cell AND size" : Results? 276 posts (your post above at the top of the list).

We are using a chopped down version of Apache Lucene (search engine) on the current iteration of BYC; check the FAQ (towards the bottom of page): https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/search-and-advanced-search-tutorial

Bit of a learning curve, but saves a lot of time (can get pretty exacting - pretty fast).
 
Wow Ivan...
bow.gif



Searching definitely is an art and a science. It can take a bit of skill to learn to search effectively, but once you get the hang of it, you can do some cool stuff (as shown above).

The search system isn't perfect (heck, Google has billions of $$ and thousands of engineers and they fix their search engine every day) but it does work pretty well in most cases.

If anybody has problems with the search, here is the info we need:

  1. Search Term & settings you are using when searching
  2. What URLs should be at the top?
  3. What's the URL of the item you are expecting to find, or the title, or some other info about the item you are looking for
  4. Any additional information (e.g. Advanced vs Basic search, Sorted By)
 
Thanks Ivan, but I am not suggesting that changes need to be made to the number of results returned. What I am suggesting is that there needs to be a way to click on the post that contains the information returned by the search criteria. I don't care if there ARE 27 or 3070 replies. (Actually, that's good - it means there is lots of info to look at). What matters to me is that I can get to the info I need. When all I can get to is the first and last post and there are 500 or 10,000 posts in the thread, the results are essentially useless.
 
Again, please provide specific examples so we can duplicate and test the problems you're experiencing.

You have a lot of search options you can toggle in the "Advanced Search" that allow you to really pinpoint where you are searching and how the results are returned. You can also search within individual sections of the forum or even search all the posts in a single thread.
 
HEChicken wrote: Thanks Ivan, but I am not suggesting that changes need to be made to the number of results returned. What I am suggesting is that there needs to be a way to click on the post that contains the information returned by the search criteria. I don't care if there ARE 27 or 3070 replies. (Actually, that's good - it means there is lots of info to look at). What matters to me is that I can get to the info I need. When all I can get to is the first and last post and there are 500 or 10,000 posts in the thread, the results are essentially useless.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I'm following you (pretty daft for the most part, sorry): If I Advance search in posts only (air cells, yes?), this is what shows up: If I search titles only: What am I missing?
 
Those are very different than the results I am getting when I search on the same combination of words:


As you can see, all of the threads are threads that have thousands of replies. However, my problem is not whether the results returned number in the single digits or hundreds. And to some extent it doesn't even matter whether there are 3 replies or 8853. The problem is that having returned these results, there is no way to get to the actual information I am seeking. For example, above it shows that one of the results is "Cochin Thread!!!", which contains 8853 replies. My options are to go to the very first post in that thread, or the very last post in that thread. There is no way to go directly to the post that contains information on my search: Air cell size. Does that help? Before the migration, when I searched on something, the link I clicked on would take me directly to, for example post 762, if THAT was the post that contained the information on air cell size.
 

Similar threads

fowltemptress
    • Like
    • Love
    • Informative
Information on how to post videos to BYC
Replies
4
Views
896
Debbie292d
Debbie292d
FNF
    • Love
Best breed of drake for my six female runner ducks
Replies
4
Views
647
FNF
FNF
C
    • Sad
    • Like
This is a duck/predator question
2 3 4
Replies
33
Views
3K
Sic
S
1
Ascites Draining- Two Questions
Replies
2
Views
701
12404914
1
gtaus
    • Like
    • Haha
Solved Necroposting Guidelines for BYC Forums?
Replies
8
Views
2K
rosemarythyme
rosemarythyme

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom