Search Function

Le_Kirk

I know how to use the search function on this forum and generally it works well, however, how do you search for a specific phrase? As an example, I want to search for say Deed of Covenant and if I just input those three words in I get every thread/post containing ANY of those words.

Normally, if one is searching for specific phrases in databases there would be a way to do it, for example "Deed of Covenant" would find only threads or posts that contained ALL of those words. I have tried apostrophes, hashes, brackets etc but in my search I still get returned EVERY post/thread that contains the word "of." If you are searching by user name, there is a nice box marked "Exact Name" that you can tick, why is there not a tick box for "Exact Phrase"

I have even tried using Boolean logic, i.e. Deed AND of AND Covenant to no avail. If someone can tell me there is no way, I will give up but if someone knows how to do it, then please put me out of my misery!

D_M_E

I have the same problem.

Have you tried using the Advanced Search facility - sometimes this works for me but mostly it does not.

I have reverted to using a site specific search with for example Google when I want to search using a phrase or a term with omre than one word.

Ms_Chocaholic

Have you tried putting it in quotes - "deed of covenant", I've just tried and the majority of search results were from this forum so it looks like it works, I didn't want to check each thread though.

Ms_Chocaholic

This was my search results
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/search.php?searchid=178113389


If that hasn't worked, type in Google:

"deed of covenant" "moneysavingexpert"

Le_Kirk

I knew I shouldn't have put any words in! Of course everyone is going to search for those and find the post I made and think it works. Yes, I have tried using quotes, as I said in my OP but it doesn't work any differently. I always use Advanced Search and ........ it doesn't work any differently. At least you have confirmed it's not just me!

Ms_Chocaholic

Le_Kirk wrote: »

I knew I shouldn't have put any words in! Of course everyone is going to search for those and find the post I made and think it works. Yes, I have tried using quotes, as I said in my OP but it doesn't work any differently. I always use Advanced Search and ........ it doesn't work any differently. At least you have confirmed it's not just me!

Did you try the Google option

Heedtheadvice

Le_Kirk, you are quite correct. The MSE search is poor and the advanced search really is actually quite a simple one.


It dirs not give you the options to tailor your search with anything like the degree of control that is normal these days in most database searches, on line or off. There would seem to be no way to instruct a full literal phrase, it only searches for all instances of each keyword.


Google search does work (as per the above suggestion) but does not produce quite the same specific presentation of results e.g. the forum that the thread resides in and thread title are not necessarily shown by google.


Would be good if mse improved the search using options probably already available in the underlying database.....

Le_Kirk

I will try the Google search suggestion today.

Le_Kirk

Ms_Chocaholic wrote: »

This was my search results
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/search.php?searchid=178113389


If that hasn't worked, type in Google:

"deed of covenant" "moneysavingexpert"

Will try that today but, as explained, I am not looking for those words, they were just an example.

tonyh66

try doing the search without the common words in the phrase i.e. remove 'of'

Le_Kirk

Will try that also - but I believe I have tried it before.