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Why does the search function suck?
I don’t want to ask a question that has probably been answered thousands of times already, so I want to search of it instead. I can’t even search more than few letters, if I do, I get this…
From what I remember is that whoever programmed it left Anet and no one has been able to fix it. Gaile had a work-around using google in a post long ago. If I can find the post I will link it here.
EDIT: Ok it’s actually on this forum at the very top, but here is the link anyhow.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Searching-the-Forums/first#post4701436
Certified Gameaholic
(edited by circuitnerd.5863)
I believe the reason is that, like most forums, it was developed by a third party and the contract expired (or even more likely: the company went out of business and/or stopped working on stuff for older clients for various reasons).
Regardless, google (and its competitors) is nearly always better searching forums than the internal search function is. I use:
site:forum-en.guildwars2.com inurl:forum itchyeyebrows
(substitute any search term for itchy’s name)
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
I don’t want to ask a question that has probably been answered thousands of times already, so I want to search of it instead. I can’t even search more than few letters, if I do, I get this…
The forums were made by a third party, that third party no longer works with Anet. So, the search function was never fully implemented. You can do the google search trick listed above.
Well, here is the exact reason of why search hasn’t been fixed so far:
[SNIP] We regret that the search engine is not functioning properly right now…
Out of curiosity, does anyone know if the search engine ever worked? If so, when did it stop working? I’m not sure that I recall that it ever worked, but I could be mistaken.
In any case, I’m having a difficult time understanding why exactly the forum search engine would be broken for so long and/or be so difficult to fix. Nearly every forum on the internet has a working search engine; it’s not brand-new cutting-edge technology. Honestly, is ANet doing so poorly financially that it cannot afford to have forum tools that work?
The problem is deep within the technology behind the forum structure itself. Yes, we had a search engine in the beginning, but it was broken by our forum contractor in the course of working on other things. We no longer have a relationship with that contractor or his company, and someone else is not able to step into the system and fix the search engine because (1) our programmers are tasked with other essential work, (2) the forums run on a web framework with which most of our programmers are not familiar and (3) we’re investigating other options for forums and it would not be prudent to pour money into hiring someone to fix this as a short-term solution.
My team agrees that it would be great to share the system that is outlined in the OP, and we’re going to figure out a way to do that. It won’t be as simple as “plumbing” the current search window to go to Google — each of us still will need to input the search manually, but it’s better than the current “poke and prod” to find a particular post!
Btw, that thread was what led Gaile to make the sticky thread about the search feature.