Posted on 01/14/2018 12:52:31 AM PST by Fai Mao
Often Freepers try the search function and miss that the article has previously posted. Here is a trick to help find previously posted items:
1. Use only one word from the title, not the whole title.
Sometimes titles are abbreviated or the different sources run the same article using slightly different titles. An exact title search will not, in such cases find the previously posted articles. So, pick only the most important word.
2. Under the search bar, there is a pull-down menu. Use this to select "title" for your search rather than the standard keyword search.
The difference in the hits you receive can be rather significant.
For example: If you type the entire title "Chelsea Manning files to run as Democrat for US Senate in Maryland..." into the search bar and use the "keyword" function you get will not see the article anywhere.
If you use just the last name "Manning" and switch the search to "Title" then you get this different list of hits.
Using the word "Manning" as a keyword http://freerepublic.com/tag/manning/index?tab=articles
Using the word "Manning" as a Title http://freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;q=quick;s=Manning
I hope this helps.
Thank you!
manning site:freerepublic.com
FR is great software
BUT if the underlying software search function was modified using REGULAR EXPRESSIONs, even title could be searched with multiple different words for better selectivity.
Otherwise, pointing the FR website at google could also use google’s search features applied to the FR website.
That query is currently returning five hits for four distinct threads
Using just the word “Manning” and the title option rather than keyword returns the same hits - and you don’t have to use Google.
...If you use just the last name “Manning” and switch the search to “Title”...
You’ve hit upon the clue here. Always try to find a unique word in the title. Manning would be a good one in your example. And always switch the search to title (it would be nice if it defaulted to that, hint, hint). And sort the results by date.
but sometimes it looks like someone will post an article without reading the previous 20 -30 topics or the past hour.
Thanks... good advice.
I always searched the exact title, since that is what we are supposed to post.
For a lot more Search flexibility, go to the Google Advanced Search Page (I keep "GAS" on my iPad Favorites). There you can choose things like match a phrase, match all words, match any words, numbers, a last-update range, a site, where the word(s) are found on the page, and more.
I almost never use Keyword Search because you never know what keywords users have used to tag an article. That is often a fool's errand.
I wish that “title” was the default search category.
I think the search function does work on words that have four letters or less.
Should be does NOT work.
It also returns the fewest hits.
It needs work.
One of my favorite GASes goes like this:
inurl:3622303 "42 posted"
It doesn't always work, but when it works, it works.
I'll leave the why, when, and how as an exercise for the reader.
Someday maybe one of us will be able to afford to finance a much more comprehensive search mechanism for FR. That would be very nice.
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