A Tool to help with FR searches before posting.

1/8/03 | Bloody Sam Roberts

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Forgive me if this is viewed as a useless vanity posting. I don't believe it is.

I have discovered a way to search Free Republic for any word that is 3 letters or less.

As you may or may not know, the FR search function doesn't work on words that are less than 4 letters.

The way to do this is simple. First go to Google.
The word "site" followed by a colon enables you to restrict your search to a specific site. To do this, use the site:sampledomain.com syntax in the Google search box. For example, to find all threads relating to the NFL simply type this into the Google search box:

NFL site:www.freerepublic.com

Your search results will display a list of topics on FR relating to the NFL. This will be helpful in hunting down threads relating to SUV, FBI, etc...etc.

Happy Hunting!

[Libertina]

You just nipped in there ahead of me lol!

[Billthedrill]

Already posted HERE.

F'Petessake, don't you ever search before posting? ;-)

[.30Carbine]

Look for the "Tag line" bar just above the word wrap and preview buttons on your composing page.

[ml/nj]

It didn't really work.

I restricted the search to "freerepublic.com" and searched for the exact phrase: "ML/NJ"; it found 8 items scattered over several years.

ML/NJ

[k2blader]

It's good for an "isn't there ANYTHING?" desperation search, but you can be sure you're only getting about 1% of the actual matching threads when you run a search.

*LOL* Yeah, I just noticed that... Agh...

Perhaps a better way to search for acronyms is to do a keyword search from the FR home page.

[snippy_about_it]

It's now at the bottom when you type your reply.

Be careful though, I've used mine for a specific thread and then posted on another and the same tag line appeared. You need to check it each time.

[.30Carbine]

That should read, "Don't you ever do a bloody search before posting?"

[Billthedrill]

Bloody right!

[Copernicus]

Well I'll be darned!

Best regards,

[jdontom]

I just used the google search engine for grayout davis and brought up at least a hundred threads.

[Prodigal Son]

Good info thanks.

[.30Carbine]

John Robinson reincarnated the tag line. It lay dead for a bloody long while and we all missed it.

[aculeus]

As you may or may not know, the FR search function doesn't work on words that are less than 4 letters.

Which explains why my search for "spy" was a failure.

Thanks for the tip.

[dennisw]

Thanks for the explanation.

[RonDog]

I have discovered a way to search Free Republic for any word that is 3 letters or less. As you may or may not know, the FR search function doesn't work on words that are less than 4 letters.

There is ANOTHER way - which can find virtually ALL threads on FR - using FR's internal search engine, and adding a SECOND 4+ letter word as a qualifier.

See, from:

Free Republic Search Engine *Experimental*
Search Free Republic ^

Posted on 12/07/2001 3:41 PM PST by John Robinson
I've placed online an experimental search engine. It currently only searches article titles. If the technology proves worthy, I'll try to expand it to search articles and commentary. If it cooks the server, it's outta here.

It has a few interesting features, please give it a whirl...

-- snip --

To: John Robinson; WIMom

Well, this search engine is a hybrid.
The workhorse is the FULLTEXT index facility included with recent versions of MySQL, this workhorse ignores three-letter words. If you give the workhorse only three-letter words, it will return nothing.

However, if you give the workhorse something it can find, like "song" and "parody" and use "match all" or "match exact", my code will further restrict what the workhorse finds-- it takes the results from the workhorse and then filters them again. So if you are looking for "song", "parody", and "you", the workhorse ignores "you", finds many records with "song" and/or "parody", gives those results to my code, which then makes sure each has "song" AND "parody" AND "you".

And my code is not invoked if you do a "match any"; so "match any" will never find a three-letter word.

This might sound amazingly complicated, but it really isn't that much code. :-) [John Robinson]

I see. So a "work-around" for the "ignore three-letter words" problem is to include in the search SOMETHING ELSE, which is longer than four characters, like:

fbi files - rather than just FBI
irs taxes - rather than just IRS
fox news - rather than just FOX
freep cnn - rather than just CNN

Also, FOUR-letter words - by themselves - seem to be O.K.:

waco
news
gore

108 posted on 12/08/2001 2:36 PM PST by RonDog

The links do not work any more, but the strategy is still valid, IMHO...

[Free the USA]

fyi

[185JHP]

You can put your own screenname in the ordinary Google search box, and it will find some of your posts. How they decide which ones to save, I don't know.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Cute Bill. Real cute.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Yeah, I'm finding limitations that have been explained by others here as to why. But as far as your search goes it is really aimed at being more of a keyword search. There already is a search function on FR to find everything by ml/nj...or Timesink or kattracks. Well, you get the idea.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

There is ANOTHER way -

Well I'll be danged. I mean bloody danged. Thanks!