+claypotter Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 (edited) Are there any tips on using the geocaching search engine for more complex searches. I'm trying to figure out how to search on a cache description like "cemetery" and also within "North Carolina". Can't seem to figure out how to search for multiple things at once. I guess another solution would be to have the ability to filter the search results or sort the search results. Edited August 29, 2009 by claypotter Link to comment
+bittsen Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 Are there any tips on using the geocaching search engine for more complex searches. I'm trying to figure out how to search on a cache description like "cemetery" and also within "North Carolina". Can't seem to figure out how to search for multiple things at once. I guess another solution would be to have the ability to filter the search results or sort the search results. +cemetary +north +carolina That should do it for you Link to comment
+paleolith Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 +cemetary +north +carolinaThat should do it for you What are you smoking? I want some of it. No, that returns no results. (And just cemetary returns about 600, whereas cemetery returns about 4700. gc.com is not forgiving of irregular spelling.) The name search is strictly a string search. The string of characters you put in the box must appear exactly in the cache name, including punctuation -- even + signs. It is not a multiple keyword search. This is indeed annoying. Also, if you enter three or fewer characters, it apparently requires that the string match the entire name -- "reds" finds a lot more caches than "red". You can search on multiple criteria in PQs. Unfortunately, the name criterion is missing from PQs. But all is not lost. Go to Google and in the search box put cemetery "in north carolina united states" site:geocaching.com Including the country name seems to restrict the result to just cache pages -- otherwise you may be overwhelmed with results for "hotels near" etc. You'll get some false hits -- for example, if someone recently mentioned a cemetery in a log, that'll cause a hit. However, this particular query only returns 14 hits, so weeding out the false ones should be pretty easy. Edward Link to comment
+bittsen Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 +cemetary +north +carolinaThat should do it for you What are you smoking? I want some of it. No, that returns no results. (And just cemetary returns about 600, whereas cemetery returns about 4700. gc.com is not forgiving of irregular spelling.) The name search is strictly a string search. The string of characters you put in the box must appear exactly in the cache name, including punctuation -- even + signs. It is not a multiple keyword search. This is indeed annoying. Also, if you enter three or fewer characters, it apparently requires that the string match the entire name -- "reds" finds a lot more caches than "red". You can search on multiple criteria in PQs. Unfortunately, the name criterion is missing from PQs. But all is not lost. Go to Google and in the search box put cemetery "in north carolina united states" site:geocaching.com Including the country name seems to restrict the result to just cache pages -- otherwise you may be overwhelmed with results for "hotels near" etc. You'll get some false hits -- for example, if someone recently mentioned a cemetery in a log, that'll cause a hit. However, this particular query only returns 14 hits, so weeding out the false ones should be pretty easy. Edward How rude!! The OP asked how to search for North Carolina Cemetary and from this page http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...mp;CODE=explain it tells how to do a search for all three words. And I showed the OP. There was no reason for you to be rude. Link to comment
+claypotter Posted August 29, 2009 Author Share Posted August 29, 2009 Thanks for the great help. I wasn't aware of the + and - in the advanced search. Although that didn't solve this particular issue, I'll definitely use it in the future. The Google search technique solved this very well. Thanks, Brad Link to comment
+ecanderson Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 I'm not sure what anyone is smoking. Have never had the feature work as advertised. I've never been able to get the 'quoted expression' technique to work at all. From: Advanced Search All Geocaches By Keyword Try placing "Side Bet" in quotes, like that. None of my "Side Bet" caches show up at all. Some that should include GC19QE3 GC1B03D GC1B049 If anyone can shed some light on that... Link to comment
+mrbort Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 (edited) Seems like we're discussing two different features here both of which have their own search protocols that are different and getting each other confused by that and in the process toes are getting stepped on. It's my understanding that the OP wants to use the search feature on gc.com to find cemetery caches in North Carolina within the cache descriptions. Then I think there was a bit of confusion and Bittsen posted the method that is supposed to work for the forums. Paleolith then posted a different method (I think it could have been phrased a little more diplomatically but that's another issue...) that searches the entire GC.com site. Seems to me that this is probably the best workaround at this point... it also works on the forums, changing geocaching.com to forums.Groundspeak.com. Finally ecanderson mentioned something that I've noticed is that the method mentioned in the link bittsen provided doesn't work for any string that has words of 4 characters or fewer.... essentially crippling it. I suspect that with regard to the final point there, you're running into the fact that the quotes are killing it; as mentioned earlier it's not parsing the quotes to mean "search for this string of words all in a line" but rather takes whatever you put into that box and searches for all of those characters in a line. If you post "side bet" without the quotes, you get your caches. We're seeing different searching rules for the forums (essentially broken) and the keyword search (very limited). Edited to add: If you search for "bet side" (without the quotes) you won't get the correct results either. Also, the keyword only seems to search the cache title and not the descriptions so the OP's best bet is to go the google route. Edited August 29, 2009 by mrbort Link to comment
+paleolith Posted August 30, 2009 Share Posted August 30, 2009 How rude!!Pot calling the kettle black.The OP asked how to search for North Carolina CemetaryNo, the OP asked how to search for North Carolina Cemeteryand from this pagehttp://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...mp;CODE=explain it tells how to do a search for all three words. That's a forum search. The OP asked how to search for caches. What you posted returns no results when searching for caches.There was no reason for you to be rude.Pot, kettle ... well, never mind. But frankly, if someone asked what I was smoking, I wouldn't take offense, I'd just laugh. Edward Link to comment
Motorcycle_Mama Posted August 30, 2009 Share Posted August 30, 2009 And were done. Guys, you need to learn to address the subject and not each other. Thanks. If someone actually wants to discuss "search techniques", please start another thread to do so. This one is out of hand. Link to comment
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