Searching MrExcel.com Forums - Tips

[NateO]

Searching The Forums

It turns out that online help is not for wimps, nor is searching online help. The forums at MrExcel.com are not only interactive Q&A forums, but also serve as a searchable Database of problem/solution sets.

Knowing how to search for a problem/solution set might lead you to an array of potential solutions without even having to ask a question! I search the board on a consistent basis; for this I use two techniques:

1. General searching
2. Date-specific searching (includes tips/workarounds on using the board’s native search functionality).

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General Searching

My advice: Use Google. It’s fast and robust. The trick is to make the search site specific, you can do this by adding site:MrExcel.com (no space after site: and a space after MrExcel.com - see the examples) at the beginning of your search. Here’s the starting point:

• http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3AMrExcel.com

And here are your ‘Advanced Search’ options:

• http://www.google.com/advanced_searc...te:MrExcel.com

And note, the domain is populated for you, here.

Now, we’ll look at a few examples.

First, here’s a general Google search on the Forums, here, on conditional formatting, (this is how you would enter the search in the Google search bar):

• site:MrExcel.com "conditional formatting" "more than 3 colors"

The resulting URL (once cleaned up) is:

• http://www.google.com/search?q=site%...an+3+colors%22

In this example, we have searched MrExcel.com for the phrases "conditional formatting" and "more than 3 colors".

Advanced tip: You can see that the url coerces to include %22 as your phrase identifiers (quotes). You won’t need to worry about this if you enter your search from Google, this just explains the logic of the url.

Second, we’ll look at a user-specific search. In Google, search on:

• site:MrExcel.com NateO Byte Ubound

The resulting URL (once cleaned up) is:

• http://www.google.com/search?q=site%...eO+Byte+Ubound

In this example, we have searched MrExcel.com for NateO, Byte and Ubound.

Also note that signatures work as well, e.g., Nate Oliver is a viable search, as seen in the following example:

• site:MrExcel.com Nate Oliver Byte Ubound
  
  http://www.google.com/search?q=site%...er+Byte+Ubound

There are two limitations that I can think of to this:

1. Google might not have cached a useful post, yet.
2. The search results don’t appear to be sorted, in any way, let alone by date. For this, we’ll turn the board’s native search functionality.

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Date-Specific Searching

For this, use the board’s native search functionality. There are known limitations/issues with the board’s search functionality, i.e., the dreaded ‘can’t access page 2 results’ issue. There’s no fix for this problem, but here are some functional workarounds.

The problem appears to arise from a query that pulls back too many hits, somewhere around ~7,000+ posts.

With this in mind, the first thing to do is to streamline your search, i.e., make it more specific.

This isn’t always practical. If you have more than ~7,000 posts, the search feature will behave differently for you; in this case, you'll want to perform an ‘Ego Search’. E.g., the following should take you to page 2 of your posts:

• http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/search...earch&start=20

To access page three, change start=20 to start=30

Now, to search for a specific user, we use a similar workaround. For example, if I want search for Aladin Akyurek’s posts on VLookUp, in the Excel Questions forum, starting at Page 2, I use the following:

• http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/search...yurek&start=10

Where %20 is a space, but note, your browser will automatically add this for you. Again, just explaining the logic of the url. This particular case shouldn’t throw a page 2 error under normal circumstances, but it’s a functional example.

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That’s it. If there are additional search quandaries or tips to add to this, PM AdminMsg or myself and we’ll be happy to consider them. Or you can post follow-up questions in the ‘About This Board’ forum.

[NateO]

For this, use the board’s native search functionality. There are known limitations/issues with the board’s search functionality...

Note, this aspect of my write-up applies to the old forum software which is all-together different than what we now have, today.

Once I've figured out the nuances of the new board's search functionality, I'll rewrite this part of my write-up. For now I'll leave it as is and please disregard.