search word too common, Google?

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brynn
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search word too common, Google?

Postby brynn » Fri Feb 19, 2010 5:04 am

Hi Friends,
Often when I search the forums, the results I get says the search word is too common. I do understand why common words should be excluded. But it seems like words are flagged as too common that I don't think are particularly commonly used in these forums.

Is there a list of common words that microUgly could edit? Or is it a list set by the forum software that can't be changed? Or does the search itself determine that the word is too common by the number of search results?

I wonder if we had a Goggle Site Search, would it find the same words as too common? Or is there a way to invoke a Google search, without setting up the Site Seach interface? I've never seen a Google search refuse to display results because there are too many.

FYI, the word I was just trying to seach was "brushes". I don't remember other words that I've searched, that were determined to be too common, but it does seem to happen a lot.

Thanks for your help and for listening :D

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sas
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Re: search word too common, Google?

Postby sas » Fri Feb 19, 2010 5:27 am

brynn wrote:Or is there a way to invoke a Google search, without setting up the Site Seach interface?

You can just do an ordinary Google search, but include

site:inkscapeforum.com

in the search. E.g., site:inkscapeforum.com brushes

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brynn
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Re: search word too common, Google?

Postby brynn » Fri Feb 19, 2010 5:48 am

Thanks sas.
I thought there was a way to do it, but I couldn't remember what it is :roll:

Still though, a Google Site Search might be nice?

[Edit] The Google search turned up 119 results. That doesn't seem like too many, or to deserve the "too common" category, to me.

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microUgly
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Re: search word too common, Google?

Postby microUgly » Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:11 am

brynn wrote:Still though, a Google Site Search might be nice?
This had been requested, and I had started looking into it... then I got distracted.

[Edit] The Google search turned up 119 results. That doesn't seem like too many, or to deserve the "too common" category, to me.

A word is automatically treated as too common based on a threshold which was 5%. Technically speaking 5% of all posts would be around 900 results. I'm not sure if it's that black and white. But I've bumped the threshold to 10% if you wanted test your search again.

Keep in mind though, phpBB search does not compare to Google search. If it did, Google would have such a good stranglehold on the search industry.

I'm on holidays for a month after today and expect to have some free time, so I'll take another look at integrating a Google search tool.

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brynn
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Re: search word too common, Google?

Postby brynn » Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:58 am

Ok, now the forum search turned up 63 results.
Thanks micro :D


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