GW search engine is from 1998
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Actually
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Posted 3:30 pm, 05/19/2022
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Mr GoWilkes, you are not alone in searching for "Big Bud"
Wilkes loves it's "Big Girls" and "Big Bud" internet searches
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GoWilkes
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Posted 1:09 pm, 05/19/2022
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I'm active on two other message boards.
The first is a large gardening forum, much larger than GoWilkes. I searched for "big bud" (the only gardening term I could think of with 3-letter words) and it had 0 results.
Then I searched for "bug on bud". It returned 175 threads, so somehow they treat it differently than a 2-word search. The top result was from 2004.
The second uses Google as its search engine, so it's no help at all.
You said that you've seen other forums that work differently, so I'm just asking for an example. If I can't see it then I can't see how they're doing it 
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aFicIoNadoS
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Posted 7:16 am, 05/19/2022
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Do you not visit any other forums? Not even just to see how they operate and compare?
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Cajahah
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Posted 1:00 am, 05/19/2022
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He says a lot of things�..
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GoWilkes
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Posted 12:54 am, 05/19/2022
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The standard MATCH..AGAINST code that I'm using looks for what's called a "keyword density". A thread with a word or phrase at a higher density will come up above one with a lower density, regardless of the dates.
I'm not sure how to modify it to apply a weight more heavily on the postdate, I've never seen or heard of such a thing.
I could change the default to "Last Post" instead of "Relevance", but I'm pretty sure that the majority of searches would prefer to find the most relevant thread rather than the most recent.
@Actually, in your case you had a second, easier alternative, too. From the main CV page:
click on the red heart icon next to the search form. This will show you any thread that you've marked as a favorite, as well as any thread that you have started. This list is automatically sorted by the last post date.
@aFicIoNadoS, you've said this before about other forums, but you haven't given me any examples. Please do share, I'd love to see.
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Actually
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Posted 9:36 pm, 05/18/2022
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Good point.
GW why does a 12 year old post show up first? Is van it the most relevant?
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aFicIoNadoS
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Posted 9:27 pm, 05/18/2022
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Why would any search engine think a result from 12 years ago would be more relevant than one from yesterday? Again, no other forum works this way
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Actually
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Posted 9:19 pm, 05/18/2022
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I don't know, but I had important information to add to the issue of Big Girls on strike and had trouble finding the post.
Now I've forgotten my new info and we are all lesser citizens because of it.
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GoWilkes
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Posted 9:16 pm, 05/18/2022
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I haven't decided anything at all! But it appears that your issue was resolved by wrapping the phrase in quotes and selecting "Last Post" instead of the default "Relevance".
Beyond that, what do you suggest that I change?
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Actually
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Posted 8:48 pm, 05/18/2022
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So what did you decide Jason? The search engine works good?
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gascon
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Posted 1:41 pm, 05/18/2022
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Jason I find Go Wilkes very easy to use! Don't like complicated, you do a fine job.
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GoWilkes
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Posted 1:24 pm, 05/18/2022
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Not if you select "Last Post" instead of the default "Relevance".
Other forums don't necessarily have the same traffic that we have, on the same size server. During peak hours my server load is well over 100% as it is; I'm always working to make it faster, but this modification would make every page considerably slower.
The solution, of course, would be a larger server. But it's not practical for me to double my overhead so that the occasional search with shorter words will return more results; especially when those results would be even less accurate.
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aFicIoNadoS
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Posted 9:11 am, 05/18/2022
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Other sites don't run slow searching 3 letter words. And even if that is an issue, it doesn't change the OP's point about the accuracy of your search engine. Pick any search you want and the returns will always look the same as his examples. The hits will be 15 years old instead of newer, more accurate posts.
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GoWilkes
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Posted 12:02 am, 05/18/2022
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@aficionados, you're right, the search CAN be modified to stop ignoring short words! But it would require a major rebuild of the database that would inevitably make everything run slower:
I'd forgotten that I looked in to this several years ago, and opted against the modification. Slowing down every pageview just wasn't worth making it marginally easier for people to search for shorter words. Worse, it would make the database search for words like "the" and "and", which would make the results even less accurate.
Based on the doc, though, the easy solution for the user would be to add a *; eg, big* girls:
But as you can see, this brings a lot more results, because now it returns threads with a high percentage of the word "big" as well as a high percentage of the word "girl". So it makes matters worse rather than better.
So the best solution for the OP's problem is still to wrap the phrase in quotes; eg, "big girls". And then, since he's looking for a recent thread, to sort the results by "Last Post".
On my end, I had considered wrapping phrases in quotes by default because I can't expect the average layman to know all of the potential operators that are allowed. But how would the system automatically know that the user wanted to search for the exact phrase, rather than just for anything containing those words?
For example, if I wrap the phrase in quotes automatically and someone searches for "moon flower", it would not return results for moonflower. But without the quotes, it would.
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Cajahah
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Posted 10:43 pm, 05/17/2022
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I wish them well on their quest.
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JustKnow
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Posted 10:12 pm, 05/17/2022
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No one wanna address that this dude most worried about finding "big girls" more efficiently?
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aFicIoNadoS
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Posted 10:09 pm, 05/17/2022
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" I'm pretty sure that all search engines ignore 3-letter words, so that search would always return anything with "girl" in it."
That would be incorrect. Back when forums were still popular, I frequently visited forums that searched three letter terms.
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Actually
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Posted 8:52 pm, 05/17/2022
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Jason, I hope you don't get in trouble at home for an internet search of such. Lol
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GoWilkes
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Posted 8:11 pm, 05/17/2022
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I'm pretty sure that all search engines ignore 3-letter words, so that search would always return anything with "girl" in it.
Maybe try it in quotes; eg, "big girls":
Or if you want it sorted with the most recent at the top instead of by relevance, click on the button on the right that says "Last Post":
When putting the phrase in quotes and sorted by date, "Big girls on strike" is the 4th result.
I should point out that a search on Google for "site:gowilkes.com big girls" doesn't find that thread in the first 5 pages of results (I stopped looking after that):
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Actually
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Posted 6:31 pm, 05/17/2022
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Quackquack has the number one result when a "big girl" search is done. Jason's internet is mean.
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