Search just not working at all now?
Posted: July 23rd, 2017, 5:16 pm
I realize the search function is always going to be terrible at its best, because it refuses to search the words you're likely to want, like "falls" and "creek" and "elk" and any exact phrase. But lately over and over again when I try to find threads that I know I just read, on terms that it should search, I'm coming up blank.
Specific example: I just tried to find a recent thread on devil's peak. Whether I search devil's peak, devils peak, or devil* peak, I get most recent results starting way back in 2013. Yet there's this, this, and this recent posts out there.
Unfortunately, the alternative google site search tends not to even load for me--I usually have to refresh at least once to get the search box to come up. It also lacks the regular site search's options for refining, like sorting by date. Worse, it mostly returns me field guide entries instead of forum posts.
In the end I've wound up bypassing both. For the benefit of others having search frustrations, here's what's working for me instead: go straight to google. Search (for the above example): site:oregonhikers.org "devil's peak" inurl:("f=8" | "f=9")
site: obviously restricts it to searching the site. inurl:("f=8" | "f=9") searches just the trip report and trail Q&A forums (what I'm typically interested in). I've also done -field_guide when I just want to exclude the field guide.
Then after searching, I can click Tools under the search to set a date range and then set it to sort the results by date (afaik you have to specify a date range before it will let you sort by date).
The date features are why I have to go to the google site--if you didn't care about that you could just put the "devil's peak" inurl:("f=8" | "f=9") in the google search box here. But this gives me everything I was missing from the site's built-in search, and more: search specific forums, dates, exact phrases, searching "common" words, excluding words, etc.
Specific example: I just tried to find a recent thread on devil's peak. Whether I search devil's peak, devils peak, or devil* peak, I get most recent results starting way back in 2013. Yet there's this, this, and this recent posts out there.
Unfortunately, the alternative google site search tends not to even load for me--I usually have to refresh at least once to get the search box to come up. It also lacks the regular site search's options for refining, like sorting by date. Worse, it mostly returns me field guide entries instead of forum posts.
In the end I've wound up bypassing both. For the benefit of others having search frustrations, here's what's working for me instead: go straight to google. Search (for the above example): site:oregonhikers.org "devil's peak" inurl:("f=8" | "f=9")
site: obviously restricts it to searching the site. inurl:("f=8" | "f=9") searches just the trip report and trail Q&A forums (what I'm typically interested in). I've also done -field_guide when I just want to exclude the field guide.
Then after searching, I can click Tools under the search to set a date range and then set it to sort the results by date (afaik you have to specify a date range before it will let you sort by date).
The date features are why I have to go to the google site--if you didn't care about that you could just put the "devil's peak" inurl:("f=8" | "f=9") in the google search box here. But this gives me everything I was missing from the site's built-in search, and more: search specific forums, dates, exact phrases, searching "common" words, excluding words, etc.