How to Search RRI...effectively

An often uttered comment on any forum is - "Use the Search!" This is all well and good, assuming you know how to use the search, and know how to use it effectively. So that's what this thread is all about, quickly teaching you the basics of getting excellent search results!

One of the great things about a forum is that many questions you may have could have already been answered in the past, but it is up to YOU to find them.

You will find the Search Menu at the top, just to the right, of the middle of any page in the Navigation Bar.(i.e. Horizontal Bar with embedded LINKs in it) If you click on the small down pointing triangle to the right of the word "Search" you will get a Search drop-down menu that looks like this...




This provides the basic search, however the default options displayed may not be very effective for 'your' particular search. There are also some important limitations:

Limitations
Minimum Word Length: 3 Characters
Can't search common words (and*, did, here, not*, or*, some, who, etc.)
Can't search special characters (alpha-numeric only)

Basic Search Syntax

• Search multiple words using Boolean Operators such as:
  - AND (ex. stop AND light)
  - OR (ex. led OR light)
  - NOT (ex. wheel NOT tube) or use the minus sign (-) (ex. wheel -tube)
  - *NOTICE: AND, OR, NOT are used as Boolean Operators
• Search for an exact phrase using quotes:
  - (ex. "ride with me")
• Search for wild cards using asterisks (*)
  - (ex. *light)

There are basically two kinds of useless searches: 1)Where there are NO results returned, and 2)When there are TOO MANY results returned.

Often there's not much you can do about the first type except e-x-p-a-n-d your search options- if you are searching "Titles Only" change it to "All Posts." If you are searching in just "Cycling Gear & Equipment," search in "Misc Discussions" instead.(i.e. the Parent Forum, to Cycling Gear & Equipment)

If however you get too many results, which you may often find to be the case, there are useful tips to help narrow down your search.

First, most importantly, search "Titles Only."

Next, if you can, limit "Search All Open Forums" (found on the Advanced Search Page) to something more specific... if it's an equipment related search (i.e. pedals, helmets, etc) try searching in "Cycling Gear & Equipment" only, if you know it was about something in "Arizona" try searching in the "AZ" Forum- basic stuff but it makes all the difference from getting 500 (useless) results returned, to just a specific handful when looking for something.

Make sure you choose your search terms well... don't search for something like: How do I adjust my seat on a RANS? for one that won't even work because many words are less than 3 characters, but even if it did you would have a lot of irrelevant results. Instead search for just the main words like adjust AND seat or even better search for the phrase "adjust my seat" (with the quotes.) Now you might say "but the word 'my' only has 2 letters, how can I search for it?" Ordinarily this is True, you can't search for words with only 1 or 2 letters, but since "my" is inside quotes you are searching for the entire phrase (i.e. "adjust my seat") and it is perfectly acceptable.

When you click on the small down pointing triangle on the right of the search box you have several options available to you:

Search Options

• Search Forums - All posts made in any "Forums" of RRI
• Tag Search - These are TAGs, which are assigned to threads when they are posted. The concept is, users TAG a particular thread with a TAG WORD which identifies some major discussion point. TAGs can be assigned when the thread is first posted, or sometime later.
  - FYI: I have installed a MODification to our forums which attempts to auto-matically TAG new threads. However users are still encouraged to enter their own TAGs they feel best represent the major topic(s) discussed within a thread.
• Advanced Search in Forums - This provides useful options to further refine your search. Use "Advanced Search" if you want to limit your search to a single specific forum and/or you want to search for a specific username who has posted something. You can also specify a time period (dates) to help narrow your search as well.
• Search Links - Links and/or new posts in the Links Library Section
• Advanced Search in Links - This provides useful options to further refine your search. Use "Advanced Search" if you want to limit your search to a single specific forum and/or you want to search for a specific username who has posted something. You can also specify a time period (dates) to help narrow your search as well.
• My Threads and Posts - Here, if you know it's a thread or post that YOU have made, your search is automatically narrowed to look through your own threads & posts.

Finally since the vast majority of RRI is open to the public you can also search RRI using Google. When you utilize Google you don't have the limitations imposed by the vBulletin search engine. Google searches can be very useful.

To limit Google to return results only on a specific website (domain) simply add site:recumbentriders.org after your search terms. For instance:

​

So if you're looking for "seat help" on RRI type the following into Google:
seat help site:recumbentriders.org and you will get back all publicly viewable pages with "seat" and "help" on RRI.(see attached screen print)

Because Google is good at what it does you will get the most relevant results first, such as threads with "seat help" in the title and ones that have the phrase "seat help" before say ones that might say "help seat." These little differences in usage can make finding what you are looking for in just a few seconds easy, as compared to many minutes looking through pages and pages of results returned by the built in vBulletin search engine.

The only problem with using Google is if you know the answer you want is in a specific sub-forum, but is otherwise a common phrase all around the website. There is no easy way to limit your search to a specific sub-forum if you choose to use a Google search of the website.

This is a nifty trick for searching any domain with Google, not just RRI- but remember only content guests can see will be listed. For RRI this means posts in the Event Forums (for each State/Country) are NOT visible and therefore will not be part of Google's results. If you need to find text inside the Event Forums, you must use the built-in vBulletin search instead.

Enjoy Your Searches

Above thread based off of a thread entitled How to Search vBulletin.org effectively by BirdOPrey5