Search Limitations

[RossKean]

Why does the search engine refuse to use any search term with fewer than four letters?
I can think of lots of searches that might need a three letter key word:
Oil
Fan
LED or LCD
Bar
Air
Gas
DOT, SAE, JIS, ISO (and other acronyms)
Cap (i.e. gas cap can't be searched)

I'm sure I could come up with a bunch more if I tried - I have actually hit several of these on more than one occasion when searching.

Is this part of the forum package or is it something that can be changed?

Thanks

Ross

[Freebird]

Ross,
The reason is because of the way the internal search engine works. What it does is that it indexes all the words in the posts. I can set it at whatever length I want but if I go too low then the search index gets HUGE. I think I have it set on 4 characters at this time. If you want to search for shorter words, click on "Search" and then at the bottom of the menu that opens, you will see a "Google" option. Enter "fan" or any other word in the Google box and then select to search "venturerider.org" and it will search for the shorter words using the Google search engine.

[RossKean]

I have never tried the Google search option within the forum. Will do that next time I want to find out anything about oil!!

Thanks

Ross