AFCA Website Tutorial

[Evan Atkinson]

I would love a brief tutorial on how to effectively search our new website. Does such a tutorial exist? If not, I’d gladly help write up instructions if someone who knows how will explain it to me.

Currently, if I navigate to the Post-1950 forum, and enter search terms like say, “General Electric box fan” in the search box (no quotes) while making sure the Content Search searches All Content, I receive 11,719 results, spread over 468 pages. Unwieldy at best, and none of the results seem that relevant because it’s matching ANY of the search terms.

Next, I toggle an additional filter On by specifying that my search must Find results that…contain all of my search term words. I get 1,323 results over 53 pages. Better, yes,  but still an unmanageable amount of content to sift through and most of the first page results have nothing to do with my query.

There seem to be no additional native filters I can use to refine my results. The system suggests that if I didn’t find what I was looking for, I can use the phrase “General Electric box fan“.

Implementing the phrase yields zero results. Now, I am out of options.
I can’t help but feeling like I’m doing something wrong in my searching. Where is the ability to search a particular forum like “Box Fans, belt Drives and Circulators”?

Someone who’s very familiar with the workings of our site, I would appreciate your council!

[Mark Olson]

6 hours ago, Evan Atkinson said:

Where is the ability to search a particular forum like “Box Fans, belt Drives and Circulators”?

 

If you open your search from  Box Fans, Belt Drives, Circulators, the search will be confined to Box Fans, Belt Drives, Circulators, unless you click this forum in the search bar and check everywhere.

Apparently boolean operators are not supported, so we are stuck with what we have unless you can figure out how to make your favorite search engine search this site.

[Michael Rathberger]

I'll try to help but your search is very general. Box would be in many irrelevant posts regarding shipping for instance, as would general electric and fan. I did your search in just the post 1950 forum under topic and retrieved fewer results, but few box fans. Personally I don't think many are posted out there to begin with. Add to that GE, if I remember right, will not be picked up because of too few letters. To be frank, it's a crap shoot. 

I personally find results best with model number specificity or off brand fans. (Mesco the latest) And, humorously, if you want to see just GE or related box fans, search fireball motor....

PS search boxfan one word....

 

Edited June 20, 2024 by Michael Rathberger

[Mark Olson]

50 minutes ago, Mark Olson said:

 how to make your favorite search engine search this site.

try typing this in your browser search bar: site forums:new.afcaforum.com/(your search terms here)

[Evan Atkinson]

On 6/20/2024 at 6:27 AM, Mark Olson said:

If you open your search from  Box Fans, Belt Drives, Circulators, the search will be confined to Box Fans, Belt Drives, Circulators, unless you click this forum in the search bar and check everywhere.

Apparently boolean operators are not supported, so we are stuck with what we have unless you can figure out how to make your favorite search engine search this site.

Thanks Mark. I saw the boolean operators were not functional which is a shame. Tried your suggestion of using a browser (I use Chrome) to search the site, but came up with few results. I’d have hoped for better, but I wonder if all the old site content is still indexing to the new site and search is suffering because of it?

I also gave the example as the kind of search many people would do. Using the most generic, common search terms. Adding more specific words like “turquoise” or “aqua” just multiplies the massive number of results returned with no regard for relevance. Requiring all search terms be found eliminates nearly all posts. But based on the large volume of content imported from the old site, I don’t trust the search engine is finding everything.

Testing searching what you suggested (from within the forum you want) gave me the same number of results as searching the entire site. I see no toggles to limit and refine results from any particular location. 

Edited June 21, 2024 by Evan Atkinson

[Mark Olson]

8 hours ago, Evan Atkinson said:

Testing searching what you suggested (from within the forum you want) gave me the same number of results as searching the entire site. I see no toggles to limit and refine results from any particular location. 

[Evan Atkinson]

That seems to be on the desktop version of the site only, not the mobile version (images below), which is how many of us browse the site. But thanks for showing me that.

[Mark Olson]

Same thing. On mobile app pick "topics" then choose from the Forums dropdown

Edited June 23, 2024 by Mark Olson