Should we improve the search function?

[Gijs]

I've complained about this before and right now I'm annoyed enough to make a thread about it. I am currently listening to Trance Wax's self-titled album and I was curious to see what Trancefix thought of it, so I searched for the album's thread. While using this

as the search query, I for some reason get these results:

I already hated how it only looks at specific words in the query (so it ignores "wax" in favour of threads with the word "trance" in them) and using only "wax" yields no results at all (which is nonsense as well since I can not only find the self-titled album's thread via a Google search but also because I posted the thread of his second artist album myself). Additionally, when I tick the "Search titles only" box, I do expect my key words to be in the thread's title and not in the tags. The advanced search results are pretty much the same no matter what specification I give for both the "Trance Wax" and "Wax" queries.

I've had problems with this search function before and I think that improving it would decrease the chances of duplicate threads being posted. Is this something that should be looked at or should I just ignore it in favour of just using another search engine instead?

 

[Archon]

Hey, thanks for the heads up.

Yes, it's probably best to avoid using general terms like "trance" in the search terms, especially as the search functionality can count tags, sections/forums etc.

Why it doesn't return anything for "wax" is beyond me.

I've just browsed around the admin panel, and as far as I know, we have little to no control over the search engine, meaning it relies on XenForo's (forum software) logic entirely. Whether any of the software upgrades or custom search functionality would fix this, I don't know. Both would require resources.

Your best bet for now is use Google, with "trance wax site:trancefix.nl" search phrase, and it should return what you're looking for. Using thread tags means users have to fill them reliably first, but they can still be useful.

@Hensmon

 

[Hensmon]

Trance Wax is a tough word to search for, not just because of the word trance in the name, but I think it struggles with 3 letter words and less. Just searching Wax produces no results at all.

But Archon is right, we'e at the mercy of Xenforo and their in built search functionality, although I will have a look to see if there is a plugin that makes things better, as I agree it can be annoying to use.