Forum search kinda blows
by Orion Elenzil · in Site Feedback · 07/21/2006 (8:41 am) · 60 replies
Sorry for the harsh subject, but there's a ton of really valuable information in the forums which is really difficult to find because search is so hit-or-miss.
here's an example,
an article posted a month and a half ago to the TGE Private Forums. (sorry, non-sdk owners)
the article is titled "How to skip transmitting datablocks altogether", and has both the words "transmitting" and "datablocks" in the body.
so if you search for "transmitting datablocks" by just typing in the two words (without quotes) into the little yellow "search" field at the upper right, you get a page with a few hits, none of which are the page in question. even if you click the "show all results" link, it's still not found.
it's hard to imagine a better-conditioned target page.
variations:
- adding plusses seems to have no effect
- adding quotes reduces the results to two, neither of which are the target.
so i'm not sure what the deal is.
is google just not scraping the forums well enough ?
does google not have a license to the TGE private forums ?
is google scraping with an extremely low frequency ?
are post subjects included as a searchable field ?
is this just forums, or is there similar spotty-ness with TDN, resources, blogs, etc ?
here's an example,
an article posted a month and a half ago to the TGE Private Forums. (sorry, non-sdk owners)
the article is titled "How to skip transmitting datablocks altogether", and has both the words "transmitting" and "datablocks" in the body.
so if you search for "transmitting datablocks" by just typing in the two words (without quotes) into the little yellow "search" field at the upper right, you get a page with a few hits, none of which are the page in question. even if you click the "show all results" link, it's still not found.
it's hard to imagine a better-conditioned target page.
variations:
- adding plusses seems to have no effect
- adding quotes reduces the results to two, neither of which are the target.
so i'm not sure what the deal is.
is google just not scraping the forums well enough ?
does google not have a license to the TGE private forums ?
is google scraping with an extremely low frequency ?
are post subjects included as a searchable field ?
is this just forums, or is there similar spotty-ness with TDN, resources, blogs, etc ?
About the author
#22
i challenge anyone to use search to find the forum post titled "TGE exits on malformed PNGs".
prize: um. you will get to read an interesting forum post. no, it should be better than that.
okay: i will mail you some chocolate! how about that!
02/20/2007 (9:27 am)
Bumping in the form of a challenge!i challenge anyone to use search to find the forum post titled "TGE exits on malformed PNGs".
prize: um. you will get to read an interesting forum post. no, it should be better than that.
okay: i will mail you some chocolate! how about that!
#24
Google does the same thing in regular web searches of course, but I rarely have to use those links then.
03/12/2007 (9:01 pm)
I just noticed something about search that's obviously been limiting my search options. In this case I searched for "UnMessDTS" and it turned up a single page of results. What I've never noticed before is that there are links under some hits that say, "More results from www.garagegames.com/index.php," or /mg/forums, or /docs/tge/general... Holy cow! That's where all my search results have been hiding. Those, "more results" links yeild dozens more hits. Google does the same thing in regular web searches of course, but I rarely have to use those links then.
#25
There must be some limitations bearing down on the search that are causing it to be so bland or it's just not indexing enough for any reliable search.
Then again, maybe it just doesn't include limited access (SDK Owner only, etc.) pages?
Goofy, man, just goofy...
- Ronixus
03/13/2007 (12:06 am)
Blah!Quote:Orion is right, there's no point in doing that search, it just will not show up, even doing the search using other parts of messages in the posts...even directly from the page!
i challenge anyone to use search to find the forum post titled "TGE exits on malformed PNGs".
There must be some limitations bearing down on the search that are causing it to be so bland or it's just not indexing enough for any reliable search.
Then again, maybe it just doesn't include limited access (SDK Owner only, etc.) pages?
Goofy, man, just goofy...
- Ronixus
#26
"TGE exits on malformed PNGs" could recognize "on" as "exits+on+malformed" or "exits+on" || "on+malformed"
03/13/2007 (12:17 am)
BTW: A good suggestion - make common words included with searches a little context sensitive..."TGE exits on malformed PNGs" could recognize "on" as "exits+on+malformed" or "exits+on" || "on+malformed"
#27
but in this post,
that word shows up about fourteen times in the body of the thread, both in codeblocks and in regular text, and most of the occurrences are six months old.
gg website, i love you dearly, but this is crippled search functionality.
09/04/2007 (3:01 pm)
Here's a good example. the word "bitmapNameLen" returns zero results, even when searching only forums.but in this post,
that word shows up about fourteen times in the body of the thread, both in codeblocks and in regular text, and most of the occurrences are six months old.
gg website, i love you dearly, but this is crippled search functionality.
#28
It wasn't until the Google search appliance was installed that i started to really contribute to the GG community. At one point it was working extremely well and it would find everything, but lately i've noticed that its returning fewer results and completely missing threads i know for a fact exist.
Something is most definitely become broken or misconfigured on the Google search appliance over the last year.
09/04/2007 (3:21 pm)
This needs to be address ASAP!It wasn't until the Google search appliance was installed that i started to really contribute to the GG community. At one point it was working extremely well and it would find everything, but lately i've noticed that its returning fewer results and completely missing threads i know for a fact exist.
Something is most definitely become broken or misconfigured on the Google search appliance over the last year.
#31
Very annoying and broken search feature. It is laborious to try to look through all forums for an answer to a problem. I have to post in multiple forums to try to get eyes on my questions.
Please overhaul the bb, or the search at least. This is not functional.
*thud*
09/05/2007 (8:35 am)
I've noticed that the search feature does not return any results from the private forums. Specifically private TGEA or TSE forums. You can search for the exact title of the thread and not get a hit on it.Very annoying and broken search feature. It is laborious to try to look through all forums for an answer to a problem. I have to post in multiple forums to try to get eyes on my questions.
Please overhaul the bb, or the search at least. This is not functional.
*thud*
#32
in order to find threads, i still have to manually search either my email inbox or or my profile list of threads i've created for keywords i happen to remember from the thread subject.
02/15/2008 (3:47 pm)
Anybody at GG, i hear rumors that there's a site redesign in the works which will address this; is that true ?in order to find threads, i still have to manually search either my email inbox or or my profile list of threads i've created for keywords i happen to remember from the thread subject.
#33
Is there any update on when/if the search feature is going to be changed?
03/13/2008 (11:05 am)
Hi, I just wanted to add my two cents. The Google search feature is pretty bad. It only seems to pick up really old posts. For example, I typed in this word: MouseDraggableBehavior which was in a recent topic, but nothing was returned in the search.Is there any update on when/if the search feature is going to be changed?
#34
i searched for a bunch of thread subjects,
and all of them older than about Sept. 20 2005 were found,
while none of the more recent ones returned any hits.
03/13/2008 (11:31 am)
Interesting -i searched for a bunch of thread subjects,
and all of them older than about Sept. 20 2005 were found,
while none of the more recent ones returned any hits.
#35
03/13/2008 (12:54 pm)
@Orion (and others) - yes, this is something that is being addressed with the site redesign. Currently implemented with the redesign, which should go live "soon", are a spider search for the site, and a separate search for the forums. We plan to include an "advanced search" feature in a future iteration which will allow you to select the area(s) you wish to search and apply various filters to those searches.
#37
or maybe switching the google search to have links with the IP address (I've typed out 216.116.32.49 so many times in the last 2 months I memorized it)
03/13/2008 (4:44 pm)
@Eric, any word on fixing the service unavailable messages that plague the site?or maybe switching the google search to have links with the IP address (I've typed out 216.116.32.49 so many times in the last 2 months I memorized it)
#38
Our IT guys are still working on it, but I don't have a definitive answer on what exactly is wrong or when it will be fixed.
03/13/2008 (6:10 pm)
@James - we're well aware of it but are having a helluva time tracking down the source of the problem. As many of you have noted, entering the IP directly and going straight to the local box gets around the problem, so we're pretty sure it's an Akamai issue, but they've been supremely unhelpful in helping us figure out what's wrong and how to fix it.Our IT guys are still working on it, but I don't have a definitive answer on what exactly is wrong or when it will be fixed.
#39
Searching via this url works....
http://216.116.32.49/search
Sweet!
03/13/2008 (6:55 pm)
Hum.... James is right!Searching via this url works....
http://216.116.32.49/search
Sweet!
#40
03/14/2008 (7:07 am)
Yeah, searching from the URL works, all the addresses it returns are @ garagegames.com though, so you still have to copy/paste the IP in 
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