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Ravi Raja
2003-03-09 03:34:57
Search Results

Levik, here is one problem that I am facing and have been facing since when and I do not know whether anybody else has also suffered or not but now I think its time to discuss on this topic and find a solution for it. I have been facing problems with the searching of problems on this site. I type the name of the problem in the box where we are supposed to type the name of the problem and the result (the required problem) is in front of us (on the screen). But I have noticed that it is case sensitive and many other things like that. For example: I typed the subject "Coloured Hats" in the search box and the page showed me "No results found" ( a similar message in fact, not been writtn in exact words but means the same thing). Next I typed "Colored Hats" and the problem (on the site) was there in front of me. Similarly I tried for the same thing ("Colored Hats."), [this time the spelling was correct but I intentionally put a fullstop "." after the word "Hats"] and again the screen showed the same message (no results were found). This was just an example. I have been facing this problem while searching for many other problems. So, I believe something has to be done to solve this problem (may be the search engine of this site should not be so much case/letter sensitive that even the addition of a fullstop will not show you the problem you are looking for). Instead it should show all the results (problems on the site) that contain the same (actually similar/identical) words/phrases that the user types in the search box. In that case I agree that the search results MIGHT give you a long list of problems, but I believe that this list will contain at most 20 - 25 problems and no more. SO at least the user will not have to try going for different combinations of letters and punctuation marks in order to get the problem he/she is looking for. With that list of 20 - 25 problems, he/she will be easily able to find out the problem he/she had searched for. I do not know whether this problem had been discussed before or not (as I had told you before that I might hardly get time to surf through the entire site) so I thought I would better discuss the problem I ( and may be other users too) have been facing with you so that you can do something about it and this indeed will help the users a lot. I hope you understand my problem and take the necessary steps as soon as possible. Thank You.

TomM
2003-03-09 04:17:52
Re: Search Results

Ravi-

Most search engines are not designed to recognize that "British" and "American" spellings are the same word (coloured/colored), and "extraneous" punctuation often confuses them.

It is because they are not designed to parse sentences, but merely compare strings.

Usually they are only case-sensitive in one direction: searching for "hats" will bring up both "hats" and "Hats," but searching for "Hats" only brings up "Hats."

The best way to search is to just type the most important two or three words in the phrase in all lower-case. If a word is spelled differently in American usage from British usage, leave it out of the search terms, if you can. If you need it, make two searches spelling the word each way

Ravi Raja
2003-03-09 05:05:21
Re: Search Results

Thanks TomM.

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