Searching WAL

Searching the forum can be a frustrating task at times and can even seem useless by either returning no results or returning too many results that are not always related to what you seek.

Using the default search box in the top right corner of the screen will almost always return to many results. example: CB Radios - first of all the word CB will be dropped because it is to short, so the results will only show results for Radio. This will return any thread or post that has the word Radio in it - not real useful. You can combat this by wrapping the phrase in Quotes as in “CB Radio” but as you can see this will return pages of results that might even include threads that have a post that just states “I wish I had that CB Radio” or trail runs that require a CB Radio. So now what do we do?

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Advance Search
One of the most effective ways to cull out un wanted results is to search Title only from the advanced search options.

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There is a drop down menu next to the keywords search box on the advanced search box screen. This will allow you to search ONLY Thread Titles. Lets try CB Radios again. Once again you will see that “CB” was dropped. Remember search phrases on WAL need to be at least 4 characters so we will need the quotes again. “CB Radios” and searching Titles only. Now as you can see we are getting somewhere!

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WAL is not configured for boolean search as you would think - multiple keywords are treated automatically with the AND operator so “Cobra” will return all titles that have the word “cobra” in it but using - Cobra Uniden - will only return results that contain BOTH Cobra and Uniden this will help you refine the results. So to take this a step further lets say you are looking for info on a Warn Winch - I would search Titles for Warn Winch - this will return quite a few results but I am looking for info on the Zeon so I would change that to be Warn Zeon - I left out the word Winch because someone might not have used it in the title and multiple words are treated with the AND operator meaning they all need to be present.

Tags and the Tag cloud
The tag cloud maintains a list of keywords and the frequency in which they appear on the site. This seems great and it does only return relevant results however the problem is it will only return results that have been TAGGED - this is up to the users. When creating a new thread add a few relevant keywords will help the community but can't be relied on and the one little nugget you are looking for might not have been tagged.

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Google
Yes we all use Google and it works great but you get results from all those “other” sites. Let me let you in on a little secret - you can have Google only search Wayalife. All you need to do is search using all your normal google foo but add this to the end of your search - site:wayalife.com - this is my preferred method as it allows boolean operators and short keyword searches. going with our theme above try: cb site:wayalife.com - Yup no quotes and only 2 letters yet returns relevant results. now try: cb -midland site:wayalife.com this will return the same results as above but remove any with the word midland in them.

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Try: cb cobra site:wayalife.com you will see results pertaining to Cobra CB’s but you decide you don't want to read anything about the Cobra 75 then change it to this: cb cobra -75 site:wayalife.com this will remove all the items referring to 75



There is way too many operators to list here but this is a good start.
Good searching to you :beer:
 
Last edited:

10frank9

Web Wheeler
Nice Job Brando! I was going to recommend the "quote" site: Wayalife search function as that's how I do most searches. Great thread.
 
Searching the forum can be a frustrating task at times and can even seem useless by either returning no results or returning too many results that are not always related to what you seek.

Using the default search box in the top right corner of the screen will almost always return to many results. example: CB Radios - first of all the word CB will be dropped because it is to short, so the results will only show results for Radio. This will return any thread or post that has the word Radio in it - not real useful. You can combat this by wrapping the phrase in Quotes as in “CB Radio” but as you can see this will return pages of results that might even include threads that have a post that just states “I wish I had that CB Radio” or trail runs that require a CB Radio. So now what do we do?

View attachment 138853

View attachment 138854

Advance Search
One of the most effective ways to cull out un wanted results is to search Title only from the advanced search options.

View attachment 138855

There is a drop down menu next to the keywords search box on the advanced search box screen. This will allow you to search ONLY Thread Titles. Lets try CB Radios again. Once again you will see that “CB” was dropped. Remember search phrases on WAL need to be at least 4 characters so we will need the quotes again. “CB Radios” and searching Titles only. Now as you can see we are getting somewhere!

View attachment 138855

View attachment 138856

WAL is not configured for boolean search as you would think - multiple keywords are treated automatically with the AND operator so “Cobra” will return all titles that have the word “cobra” in it but using - Cobra Uniden - will only return results that contain BOTH Cobra and Uniden this will help you refine the results. So to take this a step further lets say you are looking for info on a Warn Winch - I would search Titles for Warn Winch - this will return quite a few results but I am looking for info on the Zeon so I would change that to be Warn Zeon - I left out the word Winch because someone might not have used it in the title and multiple words are treated with the AND operator meaning they all need to be present.

Tags and the Tag cloud
The tag cloud maintains a list of keywords and the frequency in which they appear on the site. This seems great and it does only return relevant results however the problem is it will only return results that have been TAGGED - this is up to the users. When creating a new thread add a few relevant keywords will help the community but can't be relied on and the one little nugget you are looking for might not have been tagged.

View attachment 138857

Google
Yes we all use Google and it works great but you get results from all those “other” sites. Let me let you in on a little secret - you can have Google only search Wayalife. All you need to do is search using all your normal google foo but add this to the end of your search - site:wayalife.com - this is my preferred method as it allows boolean operators and short keyword searches. going with our theme above try: cb site:wayalife.com - Yup no quotes and only 2 letters yet returns relevant results. now try: cb -midland site:wayalife.com this will return the same results as above but remove any with the word midland in them.

View attachment 138858

View attachment 138859


Try: cb cobra site:wayalife.com you will see results pertaining to Cobra CB’s but you decide you don't want to read anything about the Cobra 75 then change it to this: cb cobra -75 site:wayalife.com this will remove all the items referring to 75



There is way too many operators to list here but this is a good start.
Good searching to you :beer:

How many times have you and I joked about this topic on the trail. Glad to see you out your thoughts down :yup: great job!!
 

georgi.photo

New member
Wow. Very interesting and insightful post. This works for the full desktop site. Any thoughts on the phone app searches?
 
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