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How to Search vBulletin.org effectively
by
10 Nov 2010
This is probably the most often uttered comment on any technical forum including vbulletin.org- "Use the Search!" This is all well and good, assuming you know how to use the search, and know how to use it effectively. One of the great things about a forum as old and as big as vBulletin.org is that most questions you have have been answered already but it is up to YOU to find them. The first search option you see is at the top right of any page and looks like this:  This provides your basic search options... however the default options displayed aren't very effective for a good search. There are also some important limitations: Limitations Minimum Word Length: 3 Characters Can't search common words Can't search special characters (alpha numeric only) Basic Search Syntax
There are basically 2 kinds of useless searches... one where there are NO results returned... obviously useless... and second, when there are TOO MANY results returned- also useless. Often there's not much you can do about the first type but expand your search options- if you're searching "Titles Only" change it "All Posts." If you're searching just "3.8 Mods" search "All Mods" or even "All Forums" - Sometimes what you need to do isn't a mod but directions have been discussed in a version specific forum or the requests forum. If you're looking for a mod know that almost all 3.6 and 3.7 mods will work in 3.8. Usually if you skip to the last posts in a mod thread you'll see posts confirming which most recent version it works with. 3.x mods generally don't work with 4.x but some do so check the thread if you really need it, no doubt someone has tried it already. If however you get too many results, which I often find to be the case, there are useful tips to help narrow down your search. First, most importantly, search "Titles Only." Seriously, this should be the default search behavior. 90% of the time (a statistic I just made up) what you're looking for will be in a thread title... Next, if you can, limit "All Forums" to something more specific... if it's a graphic pack search in "Graphics" only, if you know it's an article search in "Articles" only- basic stuff but this makes all the difference from getting 500 results returned on just a useful handful when searching. Make sure you choose your search terms well... don't search for something like: How do I put PHP in a template? for one that won't even work because many words are less than 3 characters, but even if it did you would have a lot of irrelevant results. Instead search for just the main words like PHP AND Templates or even better search for the phrase "PHP in templates" (with the quotes.) Now you might say "but 'in' only has 2 letters, how can I search for it?" Ordinarily this is true, you can't search for "in" but since "in" is inside quotes you are searching for the entire phrase and it is perfectly acceptable. If you click on the small down pointing triangle on the right of the search box you will get a search menu that looks like this:  Search Options
Finally since the vast majority of vBulletin.org is open to the public you can search the forum using Google. When you use Google you don't have the limitations imposed by the vBulletin search engine. Google searches can be very useful. To limit Google to return results only on a specific site (domain) simply add site:vbulletin.org after your search terms. Look at this example:  So if you're looking for "Master Forum" on vBulletin type the following into Google: Master Forum site:vbulletin.org and you will get back all public pages with "Master" and "Forum" on vBulletin... and because Google is good at what it does you will get the most relevant results first such as threads with "Master Forum" in the title and ones that have the phrase "Master Forum" before say ones that might say "Forum Master." These little differences in functionality can make finding what you are looking for in just a few seconds compared to many minutes looking through pages of results returned by the built in vBulletin search engine. This is a nifty trick for searching any domain with google, not just vBulletin.org- but remember only content guests can see will be listed. For vBulletin.org this means text inside code blocks- Code:
Code Block Enjoy Your Searching 
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