Search engine troubles

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TiggerScope
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2022 2:10 pm
Location: London, UK

Search engine troubles

Post by TiggerScope »

I'm wondering why exactly we have a minimum search term size of 4 letters for search terms.

If I want to search, e.g. Olympus BH2 DIC, The search engine ignores BH2 and DIC and searches instead for "Olympus", giving me (not very usefully) 8714 hits. It's the same if the terms are enclosed in quotes, or preceded by a +. It seems there is no chance of searching Olympus BH2 DIC or anything else with three letters.

Can anyone explain why this is and maybe tell me a workaround? There are so many 2 and 3 letter abbreviations in microscopy (Apo, PC, NA, FN. RMS, DIC, J-L, FL, LWD, CFN, CFI, OI, WI, Epi, mag, etc) the search engine really isn't much use in microscopy.

Thanks,
Peter

blekenbleu
Posts: 146
Joined: Sat May 10, 2008 5:37 pm
Location: U.S.
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Re: Search engine troubles

Post by blekenbleu »

TiggerScope wrote:
Fri Aug 26, 2022 6:38 am
tell me a workaround?
I have this browser bookmark: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3A ... 2Fforum%2F
then just append e.g. "Olympus BH2 DIC" or "Olympus" "BH2" "DIC"
Metaphot, Optiphot 1, 66; AO 10, 120, and EPIStar 2571
https://blekenbleu.github.io/microscope

rjlittlefield
Site Admin
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Re: Search engine troubles

Post by rjlittlefield »

One workaround is to use Google search (https://www.google.com/search), restricting the query to this site, for example
site:photomacrography.net Olympus BH2 DIC
At this moment, for me, this initially claims to return 195 results, which then reduces to about 60 after Google is done omitting "very similar" results.

Quote marks, as in blekenbleu's example, can further restrict the search results according to Google's search conventions.

The 4-character limitation comes from a server-wide setting of the MySQL database engine, which is where our phpBB forum software keeps all of its records, which it searches using MySQL's "Fulltext" capability. There are other options for databases and search methods, but all of them have some deficiencies so the choice is a matter of balancing tradeoffs.

--Rik

TiggerScope
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2022 2:10 pm
Location: London, UK

Re: Search engine troubles

Post by TiggerScope »

Hi chaps, the two solutions suggested are in fact one and the same, so it is obviously the way to go.

I got 79 results this time. All good.

Thanks a lot!

Peter

P.S. MySQL, phpBB, Fulltext... ?? I think I need to lie down for a while.

Lou Jost
Posts: 5945
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2015 7:03 am
Location: Ecuador
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Re: Search engine troubles

Post by Lou Jost »

Another problem is that the search engine ignores common words, even when they are needed to narrow down another less common word.

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