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The new search function


Derb522002

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When I enter "california", one of the options I'm given is "all geocaches in California"

Oh neat! I didn't realize they had added such functionality to the new search. That makes it much more intuitive to use, though there could still be some more clarification of what's happening if you choose the last option (ie. perform a radius search around the center-point location with the name of [text entered]).

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When I enter "california", one of the options I'm given is "all geocaches in California"

Oh neat! I didn't realize they had added such functionality to the new search. That makes it much more intuitive to use, though there could still be some more clarification of what's happening if you choose the last option (ie. perform a radius search around the center-point location with the name of [text entered]).

 

Yes, it's getting much better. I also noticed that when the new search page loads and I click in the search box it gives me the option to: "Use my Home location" or "Use my current location". Select one of them, and it executes a search and displays results. Quick and easy.

 

 

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I just tried to use the search function to find caches with a certain word in them. Never got anything to come up as it wouldn't let me expand beyond the 30 mile mark. For this search, i was looking for caches placed anywhere in the world. I'm sure someone will come in and point out how to do this but for now, it just seems harder to figure out than it needs to be. This should be a bit more intuitive for us STA (slower to adapt) users.. :blink:

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I just tried to use the search function to find caches with a certain word in them. Never got anything to come up as it wouldn't let me expand beyond the 30 mile mark. For this search, i was looking for caches placed anywhere in the world. I'm sure someone will come in and point out how to do this but for now, it just seems harder to figure out than it needs to be. This should be a bit more intuitive for us STA (slower to adapt) users.. :blink:

 

You can't search for caches anywhere in the world which contain a certain word using the new search (why would you want to?). You can specific regions as large as a country (except for the U.S., in which case you can only specify a state) though. You can't search for caches containing a specific word using the old search either. It will only search for caches for which the cache *starts with* a specific string.

 

 

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[...]

 

You can't search for caches anywhere in the world which contain a certain word using the new search [...]

 

That's not true. You just can't build the search url from GS's site.

 

Example:

Search for keyword brother in the Americas with the use of this Composed Link.

Example II:

Search for keyword Bunker in Europe.

 

Frohes Jagen

Hans

Edited by HHL
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I just tried to use the search function to find caches with a certain word in them. Never got anything to come up as it wouldn't let me expand beyond the 30 mile mark. For this search, i was looking for caches placed anywhere in the world. I'm sure someone will come in and point out how to do this but for now, it just seems harder to figure out than it needs to be. This should be a bit more intuitive for us STA (slower to adapt) users.. :blink:

 

You can't search for caches anywhere in the world which contain a certain word using the new search (why would you want to?). You can specific regions as large as a country (except for the U.S., in which case you can only specify a state) though. You can't search for caches containing a specific word using the old search either. It will only search for caches for which the cache *starts with* a specific string.

 

Maybe i remember part of a cache's name but don't remember much else? Or maybe i want to place a cache but don't want it to have the same name as another cache? Or, believe it or not, maybe i'm just curious? I'm sure there are more reasons. And what's the 30 mile limit all about?

 

I did see the search for "nearby favorites". Thought this would be something i could use but guess what?,, it grabs caches 300 miles away. This sure doesn't help those of us who are looking for favorited caches near to where we actually want to cache. I for one do not want to jump through hoops to find a cache. I saw Keystone's post above and think it's silly that i would have to go through all that to narrow down a cache.

Edited by Mudfrog
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And what's the 30 mile limit all about?
Server performance. There have been posts indicating that Groundspeak wants to increase the maximum search radius, but they want to make sure that won't impact the performance of the servers first.
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[...]

 

You can't search for caches anywhere in the world which contain a certain word using the new search [...]

 

That's not true. You just can't build the search url from GS's site.

 

Example:

Search for keyword brother in the Americas with the use of this Composed Link.

Example II:

Search for keyword Bunker in Europe.

 

Frohes Jagen

Hans

 

I wouldn't consider constructing the URL by hand as "the new search". Those URLs are kind of odd. When I view filters using the "Change Filters" button the first limits the region to Panama and the second to "Vatican City State", yet the results include caches outside the regions. When I removed the Region filter and selected Update Search I got the same list of results. Then I selected Change filters again and it had Nicaragua as the regions. I removed it again and went back and it showed Mexico.

 

It looks like the &c= argument can be used to set multiple regions but the form doesn't know how to handle display more than one. Even if that does work, in order to search worldwide one would have to include the countryID for every region in the world. That's not very practical.

 

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[...]I wouldn't consider constructing the URL by hand as "the new search". [...]

Right you are. But we are using the NewSearch Engine. That's what counting here.

It looks like the &c= argument can be used to set multiple regions but the form doesn't know how to handle display more than one. Even if that does work, in order to search worldwide one would have to include the countryID for every region in the world. That's not very practical.

I'm using the New Search from a macro with some predefined regions. That works pretty well. :)

But each to his own.

 

Frohes Jagen

Hans

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The advanced search function doesn't appear to be working correctly. One of my major search criteria is for caches that I DON'T own yet the results always seem to start out with caches that I DO own. At the top of the search results it even says that one of the criteria is for caches that I don't own. Is there something else I must do/check to exclude my own caches in the search results?

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The advanced search function doesn't appear to be working correctly. One of my major search criteria is for caches that I DON'T own yet the results always seem to start out with caches that I DO own. At the top of the search results it even says that one of the criteria is for caches that I don't own. Is there something else I must do/check to exclude my own caches in the search results?

 

My search results are completely messed up the last few days. Trying to search for specific D/T within 30 miles from my home and the filter isn't working. The list of caches doesn't match the search criteria and when I "Map These Results" it partially filters to my criteria. For example, when I set the filter for terrain 5 caches, the map will show terrain 5 caches AND mystery and multicaches that do NOT fit the terrain criteria. Is anyone else seeing this issue?

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The advanced search function doesn't appear to be working correctly. One of my major search criteria is for caches that I DON'T own yet the results always seem to start out with caches that I DO own. At the top of the search results it even says that one of the criteria is for caches that I don't own. Is there something else I must do/check to exclude my own caches in the search results?

 

My search results are completely messed up the last few days. Trying to search for specific D/T within 30 miles from my home and the filter isn't working. The list of caches doesn't match the search criteria and when I "Map These Results" it partially filters to my criteria. For example, when I set the filter for terrain 5 caches, the map will show terrain 5 caches AND mystery and multicaches that do NOT fit the terrain criteria. Is anyone else seeing this issue?

 

Thanks for reporting your issues. We have been able to reproduce some searches with incorrect result sets. It appears that one of our recent updates introduced a bug regarding multi and mystery caches in the search results. We are working to fix it ASAP.

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This may have been mentioned already, but I'm not sure its the same exact problem. I was trying to search for caches with 10+ favorite points that I haven't found yet for the upcoming Geocaching Road Trip '15 souvenir stuff (June 19 – Sept 2: Find a geocache with 10 or more Favorite Points). It says filtered by "Favorite Points", "You haven't found" and "You don't own", yet there are plenty in the search that do not meet the minimum 10 favorite points filter. Will try to attach a screen capture.

 

ls%3D00101989677320150607220409170.JPG

Search Screen Capture

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This may have been mentioned already, but I'm not sure its the same exact problem. I was trying to search for caches with 10+ favorite points that I haven't found yet for the upcoming Geocaching Road Trip '15 souvenir stuff (June 19 – Sept 2: Find a geocache with 10 or more Favorite Points). It says filtered by "Favorite Points", "You haven't found" and "You don't own", yet there are plenty in the search that do not meet the minimum 10 favorite points filter. Will try to attach a screen capture.

 

This does appear to be the same bug. The search is incorrectly returning multis and mysteries that the searcher has found, owns, or has added corrected coords or a personal cache note to. We will be looking into the bug tomorrow.

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The advanced search function doesn't appear to be working correctly. One of my major search criteria is for caches that I DON'T own yet the results always seem to start out with caches that I DO own. At the top of the search results it even says that one of the criteria is for caches that I don't own. Is there something else I must do/check to exclude my own caches in the search results?

 

My search results are completely messed up the last few days. Trying to search for specific D/T within 30 miles from my home and the filter isn't working. The list of caches doesn't match the search criteria and when I "Map These Results" it partially filters to my criteria. For example, when I set the filter for terrain 5 caches, the map will show terrain 5 caches AND mystery and multicaches that do NOT fit the terrain criteria. Is anyone else seeing this issue?

 

This may have been mentioned already, but I'm not sure its the same exact problem. I was trying to search for caches with 10+ favorite points that I haven't found yet for the upcoming Geocaching Road Trip '15 souvenir stuff (June 19 – Sept 2: Find a geocache with 10 or more Favorite Points). It says filtered by "Favorite Points", "You haven't found" and "You don't own", yet there are plenty in the search that do not meet the minimum 10 favorite points filter. Will try to attach a screen capture.

 

We released an update to the search page this afternoon which fixes a bug that we believe was causing all of these issues. Hopefully the incorrect results are no longer being returned in each case. Please let us know if you continue to see errors in the search results.

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We released an update to the search page this afternoon which fixes a bug that we believe was causing all of these issues. Hopefully the incorrect results are no longer being returned in each case. Please let us know if you continue to see errors in the search results.

Sometimes (such as right now), "Last Found" returns caches in no particular order. While the effect is occurring, it is very consistent. But eventually the whole issue clears up, and sorts correctly. This time, there are duplicates. See the photos, the same cache is shown again in the list.

The URL (still doing the same thing at this time): https://www.geocaching.com/play/search/@33.444317,-84.4454?origin=N+33%c2%b0+26.659+W+084%c2%b0+26.724&sort=DateLastVisited&asc=False

 

ad802769-b863-43c5-affc-2b598f02f820.jpg

 

6ec4bdc4-c6d1-497a-931a-6b0f4f56347f.jpg

Edited by kunarion
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Sometimes (such as right now), "Last Found" returns caches in no particular order. While the effect is occurring, it is very consistent. But eventually the whole issue clears up, and sorts correctly. This time, there are duplicates. See the photos, the same cache is shown again in the list.

The URL (still doing the same thing at this time): https://www.geocaching.com/play/search/@33.444317,-84.4454?origin=N+33%c2%b0+26.659+W+084%c2%b0+26.724&sort=DateLastVisited&asc=False

 

Thanks for reporting the issue. I'm currently not able to reproduce the error using the URL you provided. I know you mentioned that the problem seems intermittent, but are there any other steps you can provide that cause the error you're seeing with some consistency?

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Thanks for reporting the issue. I'm currently not able to reproduce the error using the URL you provided. I know you mentioned that the problem seems intermittent, but are there any other steps you can provide that cause the error you're seeing with some consistency?

It has definitely cleared up. I took the screenshot because it will fix itself without notice.

 

If it will occur, it's at the time I posted. And it usually clears up so fast, I hardly notice. Today it stuck around for a while. The other search (Old Search Page) is still fine. I almost always use that one instead.

 

The only difference is, I'm doing the Old Search from a saved URL favorite, and the new search (the one with the weird stuff) is through "www.geocaching.com/", using "Search for Nearby Geocaches" which has my home location filled automatically.

Edited by kunarion
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It's doing it again, right now: https://www.geocaching.com/play/search/@33.444317,-84.4454?origin=N+33%c2%b0+26.659+W+084%c2%b0+26.724&sort=DateLastVisited&asc=False

 

Maybe it happens upon the first find of the day, since there are two now on the 29th. The above link is for "Last Found", but the random sort is on every other column as well. It may look not bad for a page or two, then you see anomalies, data not where it should be.

Edited by kunarion
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Hmmm...I'm still not able to reproduce any anomalous sorting using your link or several of my own searches. Could you detail the exact steps you go through that end with the erroneous sorts? Any additional detail (including your browser, OS, etc) you can provide would be very helpful for us in diagnosing potential issues. Thanks!

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Hmmm...I'm still not able to reproduce any anomalous sorting using your link or several of my own searches. Could you detail the exact steps you go through that end with the erroneous sorts? Any additional detail (including your browser, OS, etc) you can provide would be very helpful for us in diagnosing potential issues. Thanks!

Well, I just now noticed it is browser-specific! I'm using IE 11.0.9600.17843, Update Versions 11.0.20 (KB3058515). I can just switch to FF to get a decent list. But it's much more strange than I thought.

 

My steps are: Visiting the exact URL I've previously posted, then clicking any header to sort any column. The first page or two seems OK, then oddly sorted caches appear further down the list. This happens in the morning (EST), and often clears up in a few minutes, at about the point where I decide I'd better take some screen shots and document the strangeness. :anicute:

 

Same login, same URL, and I cleared the IE browser cache, in case that was the issue. Compare Firefox on the left with IE on the right, each sorted for "Last Found". Two of my caches are in that particular part of the list, probably a clue. But the bad sort includes many caches not mine.

 

2891bae6-1b64-4478-9dfb-6ce58ac150ba.jpg

Edited by kunarion
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Well, I just now noticed it is browser-specific! I'm using IE 11.0.9600.17843, Update Versions 11.0.20 (KB3058515). I can just switch to FF to get a decent list. But it's much more strange than I thought.

 

Same login, same URL, and I cleared the IE browser cache, in case that was the issue. Compare Firefox on the left with IE on the right, each sorted for "Last Found". Two of my caches are in that particular part of the list. But the bad sort includes many caches not mine.

 

cbf06589-9f94-47b5-aa4b-31ed87cd9315_l.jpg

 

That's a great lead. So the errors you're seeing happen in Explorer, but not in Firefox, right? Thanks again.

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I am new to Geocaching and find it difficult to find my way around. As I read some of the entries I realize that maybe this isn't as user friendly as I thought it would be. I did a hide, checked for any in the area where I wanted to hide. Put everything in and hid my cache only to find out that there was one within the same zone. I could have saved time and energy if I could have found out there was another cache in the vicinity I was in,

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I am new to Geocaching and find it difficult to find my way around. As I read some of the entries I realize that maybe this isn't as user friendly as I thought it would be. I did a hide, checked for any in the area where I wanted to hide. Put everything in and hid my cache only to find out that there was one within the same zone. I could have saved time and energy if I could have found out there was another cache in the vicinity I was in,

The conflict was between your new cache and the secret final location of a puzzle cache. For obvious reasons, the locations for mystery caches, multicaches, Wherigo caches, etc. cannot be shown on the planning map. During the cache submission process, when the planning map is presented, there is a link to a Help Center article where you can learn more about this.

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So the errors you're seeing happen in Explorer, but not in Firefox, right?

I've previously reported similar problems to kunarion's where some of the results of one search appear in the results of subsequent searches. I can dig up the posts if necessary, but I know I've already mentioned it a couple of times (including day one of the preview), so I would expect you already have that info saved somewhere. In my experience, it only happened with IE and seemed to be related to caching (file, not geocaching! :laughing: ). After I clear the IE cache, the problem goes away for a while.

Edited by The A-Team
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Could you detail the exact steps you go through that end with the erroneous sorts?

More info on what I do that may cause the list to get scrambled.

 

It almost seems like "scrolling" the page of results is what causes the errors.

 

I first visit a link. Often just the Home coords shown on the search box on “www.geocaching.com”, which is pretty much this URL:

https://www.geocaching.com/play/search/@33.444317,-84.4454?origin=N+33%c2%b0+26.659+W+084%c2%b0+26.724&sort=DateLastVisited&asc=False

 

Next I click “Placed On”, to see the most recent cache finds and review the events. This sorts the caches by date placed, and whatever column I first click is sorted just fine. I think this is one way to confuse IE, because of what I do next.

 

Which is, I then click “Last Found”. If I scroll, IE loads more caches in pages. Scroll, wait, and more caches load. After the first page, I begin to see anomalies, caches out of Last Found sequence. Scroll back up, and there are more. It begins to seem like scrolling caused the sort to become more and more unsorted. Or maybe I just missed those on the first pass? Once the sort gets “unsorted”, it seems to stay that way, at least until I try again later in the day.

 

I'd say that it is not a thing that happens in the morning, but that it's simply that I check a few more things in the morning than at other times. And IE is on the desktop PC, but future site visits on any day are on other devices.

 

I can clear the IE browser cache, and at times “Last Found” is back to normal at first. The first page of any sort looks OK at all times, but everything may get out of order as I scroll.

 

Clearing the browser cache doesn't seem to be the whole issue. If I clear it and next click only “Favorites”, by the time I scroll to the “0 Favorite” caches, out of order numbers are appearing. In some cases the highest numbered Favorites are not at the top, but the first screen otherwise looks "sorted". Since Favorites are easy to compare while scrolling, it's more apparent when there's a sequence anomaly. I might miss an odd sorted date after sorting another column.

 

This issue is a problem because I can't tell if the cache sorted to the top is in fact supposed to be the top one. I must switch to the Old Search to be sure I have the real story.

Edited by kunarion
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I for one still hate this new search engine. we live 25 miles from town and i have to input that town in the search box just to find out if there is a new cache. before if we needed to find an event cache we had at least a 100 mile radius to search in. now I have to input every specific town ,outside of that 30 mile radius, in the general area. very time consuming. from what I have seen so far it is now geared toward the "city folks". in our case and probably many others around the world, this is no longer a functioning part of the site for us. we are almost a 3 year premium member subscriber and at $30 bucks a year for pocket query abilities only <_< ? ummmmm.... bring back the old search!!!!!!

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I for one still hate this new search engine. we live 25 miles from town and i have to input that town in the search box just to find out if there is a new cache. before if we needed to find an event cache we had at least a 100 mile radius to search in. now I have to input every specific town ,outside of that 30 mile radius, in the general area. very time consuming. from what I have seen so far it is now geared toward the "city folks". in our case and probably many others around the world, this is no longer a functioning part of the site for us. we are almost a 3 year premium member subscriber and at $30 bucks a year for pocket query abilities only <_< ? ummmmm.... bring back the old search!!!!!!
Have you tried the "Take me to the old Search" link in the bottom right corner of the "Search the millions of geocaches worldwide" panel?

 

Have you tried searching for caches in your whole state? If you enter "Texas" in the new search field, then you can select "Texas, United States - regional search" from the list that appears.

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Wow. I managed to get the exact result of what I wanted from the new search! If you just felt the Earth rotation hesitate for a nanosecond, this was probably it. https://www.geocaching.com/play/search?origin=New+York,+United+States&ot=1&g=33&types=2,3,8,137,5,11&fav=20&o=2&e=1 . Perfect! But now how do I turn these 489 hides into a pocket query or GPX download, so that I can actually *USE* them? What am I missing?

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Wow. I managed to get the exact result of what I wanted from the new search! If you just felt the Earth rotation hesitate for a nanosecond, this was probably it. https://www.geocachi...&fav=20&o=2&e=1 . Perfect! But now how do I turn these 489 hides into a pocket query or GPX download, so that I can actually *USE* them? What am I missing?

 

1. Copy the entire resulting web page to the clipboard.

2. RegEx the GC code from clipboard.

 

5241b96d5645344b41fb0c9ad863ba62.png

 

3. Use the Api to download the caches by code. :)

 

Hans

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TL;DR: How about a "Search Disabled or Archived" option? Have I missed something somewhere?

 

The long version: I've been a geocacher for about 3 or 4 years now. The search makes it nearly impossible to find an an archived cache. Here's a really good, real life example from yesterday.

 

I was out driving around and decided to snag a cache on my route. It started to rain. Got the coordinates, started looking around but found nothing, on a 1.5, 1 cache. That's odd for such an easy cache. Pulled out my Android phone, checked the app, got a "Cannot connect" error. That was annoying. Went to the website directly, logged in and tried to find the cache info, in case my gps wasn't up to date. Don't have the GC code in front of me and can't search by cache name. I know who hid the cache but can't get to their profile page to pull up the cache directly. Even putting in the GC code directly brought up nothing. 20 minutes standing in the rain at this point and getting more and more frustrated. Gave up, went home, pulled up the cacher's profile and that's how I found out the cache had been disabled but I still had the info in my gps.

 

I can't be the only person who keeps local cache info on their gps in case they are out and about but making it nearly impossible to find out if something is disabled or archived really takes the fun out.

 

So, how about a "Search Disabled or Archived" option?

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2. RegEx the GC code from clipboard.

Utterly off topic, but I was very confused by this comment. Such a short phrase having 3 terms all of which I'm quite familiar with, but seemingly making no sense together. I almost ignoring it, but I did a net search and...OMG! Microsoft supports regular expressions?! In all my years of using windows and using regular expressions, I never even dreamed of trying the latter in the former. I mean, come on, since when has Microsoft paid any attention to good ideas they didn't invent?

 

So thanks for mentioning it.

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Is it just me?

I used to be able to start a search, then move the map around and it would refresh with all the caches in that particular area that I moved to. Now, it seems that no matter what, I can't search more than a 30 mile radius at one time. This is really obnoxious as I am planning a road trip across several states soon, and I always liked to be able move the map along my route. I really don't want to have to start new searches every 30 miles. I read the FAQs, and tried just typing in the name of my state, but that didn't help much as it only listed 45 caches.

I did find the "Take Me To The Old Search" button, so I guess I'll just keep using that.

But if anyone knows something I don't, I would appreciate some advice.

Thanks

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Is it just me?

I used to be able to start a search, then move the map around and it would refresh with all the caches in that particular area that I moved to. Now, it seems that no matter what, I can't search more than a 30 mile radius at one time. This is really obnoxious as I am planning a road trip across several states soon, and I always liked to be able move the map along my route. I really don't want to have to start new searches every 30 miles. I read the FAQs, and tried just typing in the name of my state, but that didn't help much as it only listed 45 caches.

I did find the "Take Me To The Old Search" button, so I guess I'll just keep using that.

But if anyone knows something I don't, I would appreciate some advice.

Thanks

 

I think every cache map page that is generated from a search has an amber-coloured button in the upper-left corner labelled CLEAR SEARCH FILTERS

 

Click that and it should load everything.

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TL;DR: How about a "Search Disabled or Archived" option? Have I missed something somewhere?

 

The long version: I've been a geocacher for about 3 or 4 years now. The search makes it nearly impossible to find an an archived cache.

 

So, how about a "Search Disabled or Archived" option?

 

I agree entirely. I sometimes need to refer to an archived cache for a piece of info, but with both the new search and the old search it is a fruitless task.It doesn't matter if you have the exact name. The only way I have found is if you know who placed it then you can find all their archived caches through their profile. It hold the be too hard to find caches even if you get the capitalisation or punctuation incorrect. If every time I searched for an actual cache I gave up and declared a dnf as quickly as the search function here does, then I wouldn't find many!

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Very, very, very frustrated by the new search function. Here's an example of why: every single time I try to search on a location, I get a default location in Kansas, regardless of whether I put in a state. I just tried to locate the Washington State Parks 100 geotour cache in Saltwater State Park, WA. I don't know what city that's in, so I tried just entering "Saltwater State Park, WA". And got a bunch of results for nothing at all mentioning Saltwater anything, IN FRICKIN KANSAS.

 

Every single time. I have no default filters set up. My computer "knows" my location (Redmond, WA).

 

I don't want to see all the geocaches within 10 miles of Kanona, KS every single time I try to search for gcs in Washington state.

 

And yes, I'm a premium member. Still doesn't work well for me.

 

Here's a thought: set it up so that, when someone enters a *state* name (province, whatever), the search engine recognizes the state/province name and actually attempts to return gcs in that state. Then, if it's wrong, the user can go back and twiddle the filters to home in.

 

Oh, and then I tried to offer this feedback. I clicked Contact Us. On the left-hand menu, there was a link below the Search (for relevant topics) box named "Website." Well, that's what I wanted to offer feedback on, so I clicked it ...and it took me to the website home page. So I back-arrowed and typed "website search function feedback" ... and got a short list of forum topics, not a single one of which had anything to do with the website search function. Not a one! Seriously, how hard is it to search for a string of text in a text field and return a list of items that actually contain one or more of the words in the text string? I could understand fully if even *one* word matched one in my search string - but none did. Nor did the topics returned have anything to do with each other.

 

Sheesh.

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Very, very, very frustrated by the new search function. Here's an example of why: every single time I try to search on a location, I get a default location in Kansas, regardless of whether I put in a state. I just tried to locate the Washington State Parks 100 geotour cache in Saltwater State Park, WA. I don't know what city that's in, so I tried just entering "Saltwater State Park, WA". And got a bunch of results for nothing at all mentioning Saltwater anything, IN FRICKIN KANSAS.

 

Every single time. I have no default filters set up. My computer "knows" my location (Redmond, WA).

Not sure why your searches are focusing on Kansas. It may be worthwhile to confirm that your 'home coordinates' in your profile are set to somewhere in Redmond. I haven't encountered such issues with getting results so far off. Perhaps clearing your browser's cache will help. What browser and/or device type are you using when seeing these issues?

 

For the Saltwater SP cache...you'd be better off having just "saltwater" in the 'Geocache Name Contains' box.

Then in the 'Limit Search To' box, start typing Washington and a drop-down will appear. From that drop-down, select "United States: Washington".

These are the only two parameters needed for the search, and are accessed by clicking 'Add Filters' from the main search page. No need to enter anything in the search box on the main search page if you select a state from the 'Limit Search To' drop-down list.

 

Good luck. We'll be grabbing some more SP finds soon too.

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Using Google Chrome on an HP Envy laptop running Windows 8.1 (updated to most recent patch). Just verified my Home Location as set in Settings drop down is set to my current coords here in Redmond, WA. I have several other location-dependent websites I visit using the same browser, and I have *never* had anything come up that is that far off. MapQuest and Google Maps, both of which I've used recently, have no problem placing me in Redmond. Once I've pulled up the correct caches, even geocaching.com seems to know where I am (as based on distances and directions to the caches listed).

 

I've tried clearing the browser cache regularly (it's part of my secure computing routine, anyway). Doesn't change things. Just tried entering "Saltwater" in the main search page ("Find a Geocache"), and the first return was in New South Wales, Australia. The distance listed was 1.9 mi east. As far as I could tell, in the first page of results, everything was in NSW, and none of the caches included the term "Saltwater" in their names. I and my computer are currently in Redmond, WA, USA. Never even been to Australia.

 

And yes, what you're suggesting works... it's just incredibly frustrating (and absurd, for me, as a database programmer of long standing) that I can't get a relevant set of results from entering what I'm seeking in the main search box. Why even have a main search box, when what users really need to do is make their specific entries in that second page? Just a wasted click-through.

 

Thanks for the swift reply.

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I've tried clearing the browser cache regularly (it's part of my secure computing routine, anyway). Doesn't change things. Just tried entering "Saltwater" in the main search page ("Find a Geocache"), and the first return was in New South Wales, Australia. The distance listed was 1.9 mi east. As far as I could tell, in the first page of results, everything was in NSW, and none of the caches included the term "Saltwater" in their names. I and my computer are currently in Redmond, WA, USA. Never even been to Australia.

 

The behavior that you are seeing has nothing to do with your browser or where you live. You're making an assumption (not that you're wrong for doing so) that entering a term in the search box is going to do a search for caches with that term (Saltwater) in the cache name. The search box basically does one thing. It's used to determine a set of lat/long coordinates or a bounded region (i.e. a State or Country) so that it can display a list of caches relative to that location.

 

It will recognize a City, State, a set of coordinates, or a GC code (and also allows to select your home or current location). If it determines that you haven't entered a set of coordinates, GC code, or selected home or current location, it will take whatever you typed it and send it to an external "geocoding" service. A geocoding service (run by an external party) uses the string as a place name and returns a set of lat/long coordinates. The more specific you an be with the place name the more likely you'll get correct results. In your case, it would look up a place name called "Saltwater" and as it turns out there is a Saltwater National Park in New South Wales, Australia. When you just type in Saltwater it "suggests" a location in Tasmania, and if you don't select that the service is just going to search it's database for "Saltwater" and return it's best guess. Apparently the geocoding service doesn't recognize "Saltwater State Park, WA" as a place name and returns a best guess as some place in Kansas.

 

If you want to search for caches with a specific string in the cache name you need to use the "Add Filters" button. You can go directly to that page without typing anything in the search box. If you enter "Saltwater" in the "Cache name contains" box you still need to specific a region in which to search. If you enter, "United States: Washington" in the "Limit Search To" box and click "Update Search" you're now asking the system to search for caches with "Saltwater" in the cache title withing the state of Washington. I got six results

 

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