Silkie
regular
Reged: 19/01/2004
Posts: 1665
Loc: Scotland
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Is it possible to find more than my most recent 200 posts?
I'd like to find a very old thread of mine but the google search has been unable to find it despite having a very unusual word (spelve) in both the title and text. Searching for my own posts only brings 200 of them.
Is there a solution?
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Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas.
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BrendanS
regular
Reged: 11/06/2002
Posts: 38439
Loc: Me: Wilts. Boat: Lymington
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This one?
http://www.ybw.com/forums/showflat.php?Number=515566&page=0
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See http://www.frappr.com/ybw to add yourself to the forum map
and as everyone else is doing it
www.plaintalkconsulting.co.uk
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Silkie
regular
Reged: 19/01/2004
Posts: 1665
Loc: Scotland
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Amazing! I was just coming back to say I'd figured it out and you've already got it - in six minutes.
I remembered that the post I was actually looking for was by a forumite with a low post count and searched for all his posts. How did you do it?
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Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas.
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BrendanS
regular
Reged: 11/06/2002
Posts: 38439
Loc: Me: Wilts. Boat: Lymington
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Google is very bad at older posts. So I tried a Google search myself to verify it wasn't there, using site:www.ybw.com spelve. Nothing useful appeared, so tried Dogpile, and also nothing useful (I think Silkie and spelve as search terms), and nothing useful, so then tried Altavista, with search terms spelve silkie ybw, which produced this
http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=spelve+silkie+ybw&kgs=1&kls=0
Took just over a minute in total 
More seriously, if you are having problems with finding something with very unusual search terms, and getting no results, give up instantly, and try another search engine, as they all have different algorithms, and you stand more chance of success than persevering with the original search engine.
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See http://www.frappr.com/ybw to add yourself to the forum map
and as everyone else is doing it
www.plaintalkconsulting.co.uk
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Silkie
regular
Reged: 19/01/2004
Posts: 1665
Loc: Scotland
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That's a useful search engine. In the Courtesy Flags thread that it also finds, Sgeir mentions Loch Spelve in his TIC post and I post later. I'm a bit blinkered by google I guess.
Interesting that even although my username was different at the time of the Loch Spelve enquiry it has clearly been able to refine the search with "silkie" since if you just enter "spelve ybw" you get the thread I was looking for, another thread (bit of a favourite Patrick?  ) and a page from Webcraft's Atlantic blog where he mentions Loch Spelve and the YBW forums.
http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=spelve+ybw&kgs=1&kls=0
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BrendanS
regular
Reged: 11/06/2002
Posts: 38439
Loc: Me: Wilts. Boat: Lymington
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If you put the search term, search engines, into a search engine, you will get a variety of engines to use.
Altavista
Google
Some of them actually do their own crawling and compiling search results, others compile results from other search engines, but all of them tend to bring up different results, so well worth experimenting if you are having difficulty finding something.
Unless I'm really struggling, I tend to give up on a search engine or search terms, if I can't find what I want in first page, or first few pages if I know it's a difficult search. Very difficult to explain, as it's more of an art than a science.
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See http://www.frappr.com/ybw to add yourself to the forum map
and as everyone else is doing it
www.plaintalkconsulting.co.uk
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Silkie
regular
Reged: 19/01/2004
Posts: 1665
Loc: Scotland
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Had a particularly striking example this evening looking for another very old thread to illustrate just how stupid I am, for a BlueMoment post. Google was getting nowhere but after an initial failure (because I couldn't remember what I'd said) Altavista came up with two possibilities with the first being exactly what I was looking for.
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Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas.
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BrendanS
regular
Reged: 11/06/2002
Posts: 38439
Loc: Me: Wilts. Boat: Lymington
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Good to know my advice does come in handy once in a while!
I love search engines, and searching, but it's difficult to teach to people exactly how to search most effectively. Just wish I could make a business out of it.
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See http://www.frappr.com/ybw to add yourself to the forum map
and as everyone else is doing it
www.plaintalkconsulting.co.uk
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philip_stevens
regular
Reged: 16/05/2001
Posts: 2496
Loc: near Saint Ives, Cornwall
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What about this search engine to give a real selection of search engines?
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regards,
Philip
Westerly Owners Association website
http://www.sub-spaced.com
Visit MarinaSkip now
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