Problem with Forum Search

[dlfallen]

I am trying to find all posting regarding GPS but when I use "GPS" as the key word I get back "Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms."

I get this both when searching by title or by entire post.

Searching on other keywords (e.g., "distance") seems to work just fine.

What am I doing wrong?

[specci48]

Hello dlfallen,

this behaviour of the search function has been discussed in some threads before.
The simple answer: Three letter words are too short for a forum search, even not all four letter words work fine...

A "workaround" suggested by N1c0_ds is to use the google site search for those short keywords, e.g:

"gps site:basic4ppc.com"


specci48

[Zenerdiode]

Although not documented in the Forum FAQs under 'Search', a lot of forums require a search clue of greater than three characters. Its not that 'GPS' is not being found - as we all know there will be loads of posts with GPS in them - but just that; there will be too much returned. Try more in your search clue.

eg.

GPS data
GPS stream
parse GPS

The first example will find:
'...I'm struggling to read GPS data'
or
'...does anyone know the data format from the GPS module?'

I think you have to enclose your search clue in "double quotes" if you want to find that phrase only.

~Edit~

Arrgh Specci48, you got in just as I was replying!!

[dlfallen]

Thanks for the clues. I tried Specci48's method of googling and got 468 results - a lot to wade through (it searches more than just the forum). Zenerdiode's approach works but relies on you and the poster using the same words "e.g. distance and distance, rather than distance and proximity". Still a useful idea, thanks.

Here is another possible solution: I tried "gps**" as a keyword and got 109 hits back. I haven't determined yet whether it only returns hits where "GPS" is the start of a longer stringe (such as GPSdriver).

Anyway, thanks for the fast answer to my question!

[Erel]

I also recommend you to use Google search when the internal search fails to return the expected results.
You can limit it to the forum with:

site:basic4ppc.com/forum gps