Search facility

[srm]

Just tried to search for threads about the NASA SSB receiver. Being simple minded I expect a search facility to return what I ask for (or at least for the first few returns) so entered:
nasa hf3
and got every thread with nasa in the title and some that didn't. OK so I was not specific enough. I then entered the phrase in inverted commas and usual caps to show I only wanted those terms together:
"NASA HF3"
and got exactly the same list of threads.

Effectively useless. Or have I missed something obvious?

[lovezoo]

Effectively useless. Or have I missed something obvious?

No, I think "effectively useless" is the correct description. The search facility returns posts which have any of the words you are searching for. You can not specify that you want all the words, so as you have found out you get many irrelevant results.

Apparently it is set up this way as it minimises the overheads on the servers, presumably because as soon as it hits one of the words you are searching for, it can stop searching the rest of the thread.

The technical name for this is a primal-dual interior-point search algorithm (also know as a shift half interior term search, or S.H.I.T. search).

[VicS]

Use the advanced search facility on google. Searching for all the words and specifically searching YBW.com.

Still get 186 results!