Posted on 12/04/2009 12:57:26 PM PST by RobRoy
Every now and then someone will post an article only for others to tell them it was already posted, and the OP swears they did a search and didn't find it.
I have a concrete example of one way this is happening for me. There is an old article on Freerepublic called "VIOLENCE IN THE KORAN AND THE BIBLE (very long, but, worthwile)"
Every now and then I email it to someone or otherwise want to access it. However, the only way I can find it is to search on google. Here is the search based on violence+koran+bible: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=0F0&ei=13UZS6rlL4SqsgO-tviRBw&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&ved=0CA0QBSgA&q=violence+koran+bible&spell=1
It's at the top of the list.
But when I do a "title" search in Freerepublic on the same words and select "archive", I get nothing. Try it yourself. Is there something I am doing wrong?
I use Google Search, type in your search items, followed by “ site:www.freerepublic.com”. I have seen posts literally show up in the results that were posted minutes before.
I always use Google with the terms and site:freerepublic.com in the search box when trying to find something here.
Title Search has historically tended to be “weak”.
An Inconvenient Search Engine.
Starring Jim Thompson.
Opens in theaters next month.
:O)
You need to log on first.
It stops working once your beeber has been stuned.
It's simple really.
Blame the original posters.
FR searches by keyword, so if the original poster of the article, and subsequent readers of the article did not use the “Click to Add Keyword” button under the article to add the relevant keywords, then you are not going to find it in you search.
Note to all FReepers: Use the “Click to Add Keyword" button.
A bunch of climate scientists.
There is an old article on Freerepublic...
The search function seems not to reach far into history. Nor need it given that duplicates would be of current doings.
That's not my experience. Keywords are taken from the title when the search is on 'any word.'
But then a lot of the time, they keyword one wants is not in the title.
If the title is say a “Huckabee” post, but then the body of the text is about Huckebee versus Plain in 2012, then it behoves the original poster and subsequent readers to add in “Palin” as a keyword, or else that article will not show up if you did search on “Palin”.
Bookmark the article. Won’t that solve it?
And then you proceed to speak of an old article you can't find in the archives. I don't get it . . . people usually don't say "already posted" unless there's another active thread running at the same time.
I have some older bookmarks on my homepage that have simply gone dead.
That's true. And titles sometimes change or the same article from a different source will have a different headline. Point taken.
“Bookmark the article. Won’t that solve it?”
It is not a problem for me. My question is about the search not finding it. It is for future reference, not this particular article.
That is what I do, just use google. It becomes an issue when I want to get multiple hits, and all from Freerepublic.
It isn’t life or death. I was just hoping I could get to the bottom of it if it was a “low hanging fruit” issue.
Yeah, there is a bit of “apples to oranges” there. It is really more oranges to tangerines though. I was just saying that there appear to be problems with searching, and I just assume we are all doing something wrong when we do it.
Wild guess — There’s a time limit on the index for that, what with there being over one million six hundred thousand topics on FR.
It’s right on the top (for now) at this link:
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/bible/index
Meanwhile, this topic shows up #6 in the Google search you mention. :’)
Not necessarily. Searches can be conducted using title or keyword. It's up to the searcher.
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