A few thoughts on searching/ finding information

[bueller73]

Wow do people ever get worked up when someone tells them to search in response to a question.

So I've put together a little how to/how I search.

First spend a few minutes searching. Seriously. Spending 5-10min searching won’t be the worst thing ever. You might learn more than you expected, and will irritate people a lot less. Pounding out a quick question may be faster, but don't be surprised when people go off topic or respond in a sarcastic manner, or ignore it completely, especially if the question has be asked repeatedly.

You should know that the boards default search isn’t the best.(Cough,cough) The advanced search isn’t bad, and google may or may not be best.
Vbulletin's info on searching

The way I usually search is with the Advanced Search, looking in titles:
Advanced search- Search Single Content Type-Keyword - Title only - Additional Options, <FORUM NAME>
A title search limits irrelevant posts, but may also limit good results where a thread went off topic and something useful came up.
Try switching the Addiotional Options Show Results As between threads and posts, it might help.

At the top of each forum is a Search Forum drop down, that does the same thing as the additional options and is faster. It doesn’t search titles only.

Google searching is thorough, but can be a pain.
Try “keyword” site:startingstrength.com on google.

I’ve had luck with “keyword” “Quick Navigation <Forum Name>” site:startingstrength.com
I think this limits to a specific forum, but may be mistaken.

A quick tip is to use a google site search bookmarklet. You create these by either dragging a pre-made one to your bookmarks folder or by creating one from someone’s code.

The website http://www.imilly.com/bm.htm has a good google sitesearch bookmarklet on it. Don’t be frightened by the awful layout.(My apologies to iMilly but it is pretty bad)

Don't forget to check the very helpful Resources page/ That page can be a goldmine of information.

If anyone has other tips/tricks to try I'd love to hear them.
Hope that helps.

Bueller

[bueller73]

Really? No commentary good or bad?

[Eric K]

I didn't have anything to add. Maybe it should be the sticky for this forum, but if their questions are sent here then they probably didn't read the sticky in Rip's forum either...