h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Having spent some time looking via the search engine on hootoo for articles on the bird of prey, The Red Kite, all I initially could find was an unedited article. This was actually pointed out to me in a PR Thread as well as it happens.
I therefore have spent the last 3 days writing an article on the Red kite.
I again, used search looking for suitable H2 links to add to the article and what do I find A1105552 The Red Kite, Edited!!

What is the likeliehood of getting the search facility/engine fixed so that we find what we are looking for rather than what IT THINKS we're looking for?

very frustrating, doing a lot work for nothing after spending time checking in the first place as advised in the guidelines etc.


ST. MK II

If you uncheck the Guide Entries box in the Search the Guide section at the bottom, it comes up as the 2nd listed entry: Search?searchstring=red+kite&showapproved=1&showsubmitted=1&searchtype=article&dosearch=Search+the+Guide

I guess a second check through the category pages is worthwhile too: C55093

Hi Icy, did that initially too. It's not the first time this has happened though. Nor has it happened just to me from what i can gather.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect an onsite search facility, looking for onsite only items to at least work first time and be somewhere near accurate. I used various formats in terms key words as well as search edited, non-edited etc.


ST.

Oh must confess though didn't check the page you mentioned, though will in future.

Doesn't alter the fact the search facility should have worked better. Its there for a purpose, one being to save time.

ST.

In my experience on h2g2, the Search engine has two modes - working correctly, or not returning any results at all no matter what you search for. This latter happens occasionally, but unfortunately when it does, the technical people don't seem to notice until one of us tells them.

Clearly an online guide should be searchable.

That is definitely the most common of the wishes expressed at A29268390.
We shall just have to live in hope.

Another option is to use another search engine altogether. Both of these list the entry in the first page:

BBC main search (top of page): http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=h2g2+red+kite&uri=%2Fh2g2%2F

Google: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&q=+site:www.bbc.co.uk+h2g2+%22red+kite%22

Traveller in Time not frustrated anymore
"The search database is refreshed every day, it can happen you are querying the search when it is just beeing rebuild.

Beeing unpopulated at that time some entries will not show up jet.

Still for what I know the Edited Entries get priority so they should show up before unedited do . Makes you wonder why Edited entries are indexed every day. . . "

A search for "Australia" says it all really. An unedited entry about cricket at the top, then two more entries, then the edited entry with the name "Australia".

What more does an entry have to do, beyond having a title which exactly fits the search criteria, EG status, and 74 mentions of the search criteria within the body tags??


Curiously, a possibly too swift check of Skanky's afore mentioned cricket entry reveals it also has 74 mentions of the word Australia.


vp