# 300 second wait shouldn't apply to short-circuit searches.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/300-second-wait-shouldnt-apply-to-short-circuit-searches/467420>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [October 11, 2008, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/300-second-wait-shouldnt-apply-to-short-circuit-searches/467420 "2008-10-11T03:11:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/300-second-wait-shouldnt-apply-to-short-circuit-searches/467420/1 "2008-10-11T03:11:00Z")

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I understand the purpose of the 300-second wait between searches as far as keeping the load under control. I also understand the reason for limiting search terms to words that are minimum 4 letters in length. But I don’t believe that a query that is immediately rejected for word length should incur the 300-second wait. Though it technically qualifies as a search, it never actually queried the database or generated any load. It’s just an irritating hassle whenever I type a search term without remembering the 4-letter limit.

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**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/300-second-wait-shouldnt-apply-to-short-circuit-searches/467420/2 "2008-10-11T13:11:28Z")

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Just to clarify, you mean a search made up only \<4 letter terms, right? A search with at least one term 4 letters or greater does actually search, ignoring the \<4 letter terms.

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**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/300-second-wait-shouldnt-apply-to-short-circuit-searches/467420/3 "2008-10-11T14:10:50Z")

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> [@Revtim](#):
>
> Just to clarify, you mean a search made up only \<4 letter terms, right? A search with at least one term 4 letters or greater does actually search, ignoring the \<4 letter terms.

Hmm… it looks like you may be right. With the 3-letter term stripped out, my search return 0 terms in under one second, printing a message about the removed term. That made me think the entire query had been rejected but I guess it wasn’t.