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Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 8-Sep-2014 1:18pm
by Wiles
I am trying to do a search for all posts that include the phrase "personal holding company". I am using Advanced Search and entering "personal holding company" (with the quotation marks) into the search field. I am getting too many results. The results are showing discussions that have each of those words, but not as a phrase.

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 8-Sep-2014 6:27pm
by chris
I think it's working as designed - if I go to the Advanced Search link and put in personal holding company (without the quotes) it is returning only posts with that exact phrase at the top of the results.

Then it does go on to show the other posts that only contain one or two of those words. I believe it is using a nearness-affinity algorithm so that the closer those words are together in the order you specified them, those posts will sort to the top of the results.

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 8-Sep-2014 7:07pm
by makbo
The quote marks don't matter. I can reproduce Chris reported result either with or without. You have to check the correct option, "all words" rather than 'any words".

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 9-Sep-2014 8:53am
by Wiles
Sorry. I feel like an idiot. I cannot get the same results. I have now tried the search without the quotes. Here are my settings using the Advanced Search:

keywords: personal holding company
author: blank
forums: Taxation
subforums: Yes
within: Post subjects and message text
display: Topics
sort: Post time / Descending
limit: All results
return: 300

The first result I get is:
"Depreciating capital improvement on historic building "
by HowardS ยป 7-Sep-2014 3:44am in Taxation

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=977&hilit=personal+holding+company
This discussion does not include the phrase. In fact, it only includes the word "holding".

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 9-Sep-2014 5:43pm
by chris
Nope, you are smart...when doing it the way you did, I see the same issue. I just deleted the database search index and recreated it. I think it is better now - give it a try and let me know if you see different/better results now.

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 9-Sep-2014 5:47pm
by Wiles
Yes. Thank you. That worked better. I only got 3 results this time. Each result included those words. However, only the 1st result included those words as a phrase. The other 2 results included the words, but not as a phrase.

Is doing a search just for a phrase not possible?

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 9-Sep-2014 5:57pm
by chris
See my first response in this thread...I do not think so, it will always try to be 'helpful' and add keyword related results below the full phrase results. Not sure how much if a problem that causes, but very unlikely I can easily change that behavior.

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 9-Sep-2014 6:00pm
by Wiles
Chris, Thank you for the follow up.

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 9-Sep-2014 6:51pm
by makbo
Wiles wrote:Yes. Thank you. That worked better. I only got 3 results this time. Each result included those words. However, only the 1st result included those words as a phrase. The other 2 results included the words, but not as a phrase.

Is doing a search just for a phrase not possible?

You found only two posts (one topic) with that phrase in the Taxation forum probably because that's all there is. Both of them are related to your thread on 9/8 about installment sale. Why do you think you should be finding more?

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 9-Sep-2014 6:56pm
by Wiles
It's not that I thought I should be finding more. I was just wondering why I found the 2 additional topics that did not include that phrase. In other words, I was wondering how to limit the search results to instances that ONLY included the phrase. If I am doing a search for "personal holding company", then I really don't care to find topics that that happen to include each of those words, but not as a phrase.

Not a big deal now, as this forum is young. But fast forward 7 years and searching for just a phrase or a set of phrases may be more important. But, as Chris points out, the results will be sorted so that the topics with the phrase will list first.

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 15-Jan-2015 8:01am
by Wiles
Chris, I think the search database index needs to be deleted and rebuilt again. I just did a search that failed to produce correct results.

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 15-Jan-2015 12:08pm
by chris
PM me or tell me the search you attempted...thx...

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 15-Jan-2015 12:37pm
by Wiles
Chris, never mind. I figured out my problem. I was using my name, Wiles, in the keyword field assuming it would include all discussions that I participated in. I needed to put my name in the author field, below that.

BTW, when I put my name in the author field it only includes discussions that I initiated. Correct? How can I search through all discussions that I participated in?

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 15-Jan-2015 1:19pm
by chris
Thanks for clarifying that. Sure - if you are logged in and you click on your own name (over on the left side of the post box <---) you will be brought to your profile overview screen. In the lower right hand side of that scree is a link called "search user's posts".

Click that and it will show you every post that you have made. As an extra nicety once you are on that screen of results you can search within those results for key words.

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 15-Jan-2015 1:32pm
by Wiles
Great info. Thank you.

If searching within results is there any way to get the results screen to show by Topic instead of by Post. Probably not.

Here is an example: Let's say I want to do a search of all discussions that had to do with "estate expenses" that I participated in. And I would like the results to show by Topic. Is this possible?

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 15-Jan-2015 1:58pm
by chris
I totally forgot about an even more obvious way to do this which I think will meet your requirements. Look up at the top of the screen where it says "User Control Panel", and next to that "view your posts".

Click that "view your posts" link, which shows a list of topics you have posted within (or authored). On that results page there is also a "search within" feature, where you could put the words 'estate expenses' in -- and it will filter down to only those topics.

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 15-Jan-2015 2:06pm
by Wiles
That's perfect!!! Thank you for being awesome!

I wish you would work at Lacerte.

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 15-Jan-2015 2:15pm
by chris
:-) thanks. I can't claim credit for designing or writing that functionality though - it comes in the base software we use for this board...nonetheless it is kind of awesome :-)

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 13-Mar-2015 5:19pm
by makbo
I couldn't find the more recent thread where searches came up (the one about the problem searching for "1099-R"), but here is another problem: I tried searching for "H&R" and it doesn't work, the ampersand is treated as a space. Isn't there a quote or an escape character available for searches?

Re: Searching for a Phrase

PostPosted: 13-Mar-2015 7:47pm
by chris
ok - I was sufficiently remorseful about the issues with the forum organic search facility that I integrated Google custom search into the site. Go to "advanced search" and you will see that there are now two search engine options, Google and the built-in search.

Not surprisingly, the Google engine is pretty good. Sorry for the ads it serves up but that's what you get with the free version.

Let me know if you see anything odd/weird/strange about the way the search page works now, I had to touch a lot of the code.