*Edit by Kristine: in the new forum layout, the link to the search page is in the center of the long green tool bar above.

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Last year, when I found this website, I spent the first few days on the search page. I came close to wearing out that poor button. It occurred to me today that while I am not unique in my nosiness perhaps not everyone is a comfortable poking around online. Hopefully you'll find something useful from this post.

The Search Page

For those of you who have never visited the search page, it can be reached by clicking on the globe icon () located in the upper right hand corner of every page and it looks like this: SEARCH

Basic searching usually entails entering the keyword that you are interested in and clicking 'submit'. What if you're looking for information on Potassium? You're going to get a lot more information than a) you bargained for and b) you need. There are ways of whittling the output to something more manageable.

Search Options:

One of the greatest options is located under the "Search Forums" pull down menu; "Show results as posts". This will give you a preview of the actual post, very useful if you are looking for something you've read before. Using the "Search titles only" can help you narrow down a particular thread, searching for a thread called "Potassium" is likely to provide useful information.

Choosing the forum to search will also help narrow things down - sometimes quite considerably. Think of all the posts you'd get from the journal forums if you were looking for "breakfast" ideas and left the default to "Search All Open Forums". Changing the option to the "Kitchen: Low Carb Recipes" will result in recipes and not just members' listed breakfast choices, narrowing it further is possible by choosing "Breafast Ideas" from the pull down box.

Searching for posts within a specific time period is another option I use frequently. If you have your setup programmed to show posts from the last 5 or 10 days something from 2 weeks ago isn't going to appear - knowing the approximate time the desired information was posted will help further narrow down your results.

Sorting results by ascending or descending order factors into the time frame option - if you narrow the search to two weeks ago and you're pretty sure the post in question was from that time then you'd want to see the oldest posts first.

It is also possible to "Search By User Name". This can be a search for posts by a specific member or it can be used to further narrow down your results - I often look for information on medical issues by Doreen, supplements by Trainerdan and carb addiction by Karen and Razzle.

If you've tried all of these and you're still coming up blank try using the wildcard (asterisk) option. Often spelling can effect your results. For example, some spell "Colour" with a 'u', but it is also spelled without. Looking for information on Ketostix and the colour purple would be more effective phrased [ keto AND colo* AND purple ]. Using "AND" specifies that all words must be contained in the posts displayed.

As with everything, the more you use the feature the more comfortable you'll be with it. Asking questions is always encouraged, but knowing how to find the information yourself is very empowering.

Nat

LOL, somebody oughtta make this a sticky, eh?

Thanks, Nat; though I figured that out the hard way a few days ago. Whooda thunk there'd be so many references to "psyllium" and "glutamine"?

I second the sticky vote above...thanks Nat! Searching this site has been the bane of my existence for some time now. I generally avoid it whenever possible...my recent episode of running through your entire journal backwards in search of your cottage cake recipe is an example of time NOT well spent. Note: would have just picked up the phone and called you but it was after 10 pm.

Lisa

*lol* Or checked out the Recipe forum I added it under "Quick Meals" about a month ago!

N

Oh sure...now you tell me. And I was looking in the Low Carb Recipes link...maybe it should be there too?

Double posting? Moi?

I'll bump it for you.
Nat

Besides using "and" as a search parameter, you may also use "or" if that suits your purposes, as well as "not".

Also, it's not necessary to type "and", "or" or "not" in capitals; lowercase will yield the same results.

For example, typing

• potassium and magnesium and calcium

to be shown as posts, any date, all open forums and no username specified will net the same 364 results as typing

• potassium AND magnesium AND calcium

In fact, you will get the exact same 364 results by typing just

• potassium magnesium calcium

with a single space separating the words.

Searches are not case-sensitive, which is why it's not necessary to type AND in capitals ... except for the User Name, which should be exact if you want suitable results.

hth,

Doreen

In addition to the on site search engine, I also use Google.

You can download an addition to your task bar which has a "search site" button. This is convenient for me since most of my searches on the web are done with google, so I am familiar with its intricacies.

Now if I could just find a spell check engine.


Colin

I wouldn't have guessed that so many would have had a problem with doing searches... I guess that my experience as a reference librarian's assistant has finally paid off~ altho I use what I was taught by a very wonderful lady very often when looking for things. I looked up literally thousands of things as part of my job duties. This left her free to work on other things.
Colin, my fav. search engine is Google as well. Anyone wanting LC recipes? Just put low carb recipes in the ADVANCED search option, it won't give you all the sites with just low, or carb, or recipes on, but all 3 together...Colin did you know there is a contact for google that you can put on msn instant messenger called Ask Google? It is oftentimes busy tho... it is rumored that college students use it lots! Happy searching!

Hey Colin... you must have never ran a search on Google for a spell check engine!! I offer the following~only 310 results.
Hope ya find one that works~ I don't need one for spelling errors, I need one to translate my typonese, so the rest of the world can decipher it. I pride myself in being a good speller... it is those danged typos get me half the time... did I say half? Who am I kidding?
Spell Check engine

So I was trying to search for something on fat and I entered a 3 word phrase... and got this..(fat wasn't even the first word)

The search term you specified (fat) is under the minimum word length (4) and therefore will not be found. Please make this term longer.
If this term contains a wildcard, please make this term more specific.


That pisses me off.... I needed the word fat in it.. otherwise I would've gotten a bunch of total different answers, way off topic then what I was originally looking for.

I agree. It would be nice if the minimum word length was four letters. I have wanted to do several searches for three letter words to no avail. (fat, OWL, TOM)

Them's the breaks.

I believe the reason for lengthening the minimum letter requirement is to help preserve bandwidth so the site will run faster. If you did a search for, say, "fat" how many threads do you think you'd turn up But I do agree, sometimes those 3 letter words are difficult to work around.

Nat

I am new to this site and you have probably saved me alot of time searching around for things previously seen, so thanks for that. off to check out the search page now, I may be there a while!!