Forum Search Technique

**rionapo** · 03-28-2017, 04:26 PM

The recent thread about EB vs. RB body styles reminded me of my frustration with the search feature in the forum. Does anyone know how to search for a phrase? For example, to find the phrase "extended body" rather than posts showing the word"extended" or the word "body".

Don

mikracer · 03-28-2017, 04:52 PM

The easiest way I've found is to use google. Searching for the phrase 'extended body', you would type: "extended body" site:sportsmobileforum.com.

When you use quotations on two or more words, it will search those words together. When you type in 'site:sportsmobileforum.com' it will only search on that website.

86Scotty · 03-28-2017, 05:28 PM

Cool tip. I didn't know that.

SteelheadJones · 03-28-2017, 08:21 PM

Yeah, great tip mikracer. Thanks!

BTW, I'm looking for a barn-doored RB body swap for a '99 7.3 if anyone knows of one. I think up to '07 swaps easily.

Thanks,
Robert

**daveb** · 03-28-2017, 08:43 PM

Google has been my to-go search method as well. You still may miss a few posts but it sure works better than the site search for often answered questions & topics.

**rionapo** · 03-28-2017, 09:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikracer

The easiest way I've found is to use google. Searching for the phrase 'extended body', you would type: "extended body" site:sportsmobileforum.com.

When you use quotations on two or more words, it will search those words together. When you type in 'site:sportsmobileforum.com' it will only search on that website.

Thanks. The quotes are a standard convention, IIRC, but don't work in the forum. The old forum let you search within results, which was pretty nice. Unfortunately, the current incarnation does neither.

Don

**BroncoHauler** · 03-29-2017, 06:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rionapo

...The old forum let you search within results, which was pretty nice. Unfortunately, the current incarnation does neither.

Don

Completely agree. That's one thing I really miss, and which I think has been contributing to the constant new threads being generated on already existing topics. The previous incarnation of the forum was hosted in a different environment/operating system, so I don't think the 'search within search results' is possible. Early on in the forum transition, I mentioned it to the forum administrator but no joy.

Herb

Shaggy · 03-29-2017, 09:22 AM

great advise guys!

**rionapo** · 03-29-2017, 10:46 AM

mlkracer's comment about advanced search techniques woke me up and reminded me of the wide variety of modifications you can make to focus a search. I've been frustrated lately because I know we have threads about camp tables but I can't locate any using the crippled search feature in the forum. This query gives a bingo first time (Note: It shows up as two lines on a small screen but it's one line only.)

REI + "folding table" site:sportsmobileforum.com

A simplified summary of advanced search operators, as they are called, is here

https://www.lifewire.com/advanced-google-search-3482174

And Google's version is here

https://support.google.com/websearch.../2466433?hl=en

An important note: These operators work with most search engines. I usually use DuckDuckGo because it doesn't track me, switching to Google when I don't get an answer from DDG.

Don