Tips and Tricks
Searching Our Forums
The first thing to remember about using our forum's search function: We are not Google or Bing. Therefore we cannot provide the level of search results they provide. However, our forum's enhanced search offers a handful of search operators that are used on other search engines to help you find what you are seeking. Also, knowing our search engine configuration can help you use search more efficiently.Case Insensitive
All searches are case-insensitive.Be Specific
Searching a single word might result in hitting our limit of results returned. Try to use an additional word or two to make your results more specific. See our section on Search Operators below.Search Titles Only
Often, your search term may have been part of a thread title. This is a good way to narrow down your search, and is also the best choice if you remember one or two words in the title of a thread you are searching for.Use Advanced Search
If you want to limit your search only to specific date ranges, the advanced search page will let you do so.Spelling
If you are having trouble getting results for your search, please check the spelling of your search terms, especially if they are proper names. The search engine only has a limited ability to guess at what you are searching for, and may offer a "Did you mean:" result for matches it feels may be close to what you entered.Stemming
Stemming is the ability to identify the root of a word, and follow all the variations ("stems") of the word. For instance, if you search for "growing," the search engine reduces this to its root word, "grow," and then finds all variations such as grows, grower, growers, growing, etc.Search Operators
| Operator | Description | Usage | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| + | AND operation | cookies +milk | Finds instances where the words "cookies" and "milk" appear in the content.1 |
| | | OR operation | cookies | celery | Finds content that contains "cookies" or "celery." |
| - | Negates a single token | cookies -milk | Finds content containing "cookies" which does not contain "milk." |
| " | Search for a phrase | "cookies love milk" | Finds the specific phrase, not individual words. |
| * (after a term) | Prefix query | dog* | Finds dog, dogmatic, dogged, Dogecoin, etc., where the first three letters of the term are "dog". |
| ( and ) | Precedence | (cookies | milk) +celery | Groups search terms together, terms in parentheses are evaluated first. Finds content containing "celery" where cookies or milk are found, yet will not return results if cookies, milk and celery are found. |
1 Note that the AND operation is the default for the forum search. So if you search for "cookies milk", you will receive content that contains "cookies" and "milk". Therefore, use of the + operator is optional.
Alternate Google Search
We offer an additional search feature where we will send your search to Google. While their advanced search algorithms can help find results, keep in mind the results are only as current as Google's last visit to our forums. While Googlebot does visit us daily, and seems to index just about everything, indexing is not instant. Google search is best for older threads. You can access the Google search by tapping the "G" icon in the search button:Note: The ads in the search are required by Google's terms and conditions for use of their search function. As such, we consider the results as not originating from our site, and members should be aware that they use Google search at their own risk.