# 300 seconds between searches? Why is this?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/300-seconds-between-searches-why-is-this/509390>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [September 9, 2009, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/300-seconds-between-searches-why-is-this/509390 "2009-09-09T05:04:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/300-seconds-between-searches-why-is-this/509390/1 "2009-09-09T05:04:02Z")

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I’ve been on other forums, some of which use the same format as this one, and I have never had to wait three hundred seconds between searches. I think this is a ridiculously long amount of time to perform a search on a website. I know, I know, “three hundred seconds is a long time? Kid, you don’t know what a long time is!” I can practically hear my damn grandpa barking this out in his crude, harsh Brooklyn accent, so you don’t have to even say it. For me, yes, three hundred seconds is a long time to do a search on a message board.

Why does it take such a goddamn ungodly long time?

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**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/300-seconds-between-searches-why-is-this/509390/2 "2009-09-09T05:06:38Z")

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[Previous thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=525050&highlight=seconds+searches).

Sheesh, why didn’t you do a… oh.

ETA: To summarize the other thread, the answer is: because.

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**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/300-seconds-between-searches-why-is-this/509390/3 "2009-09-09T10:58:00Z")

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What cheeses me right off is when the board goes into ‘database error’ meltdown in the middle of a search, so you have to wait five minutes to do the exact same search. Pathetic.

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**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/300-seconds-between-searches-why-is-this/509390/4 "2009-09-09T12:51:43Z")

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> [@jabiru](#):
>
> What cheeses me right off is when the board goes into ‘database error’ meltdown in the middle of a search, so you have to wait five minutes to do the exact same search. Pathetic.

I use the “new posts” button and sometimes I accidentally double click on it making it think I did a second search which then provides me with the 300 seconds error message. And then I can’t back arrow to where the first “new posts” was.

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**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/300-seconds-between-searches-why-is-this/509390/5 "2009-09-09T13:18:27Z")

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Yes, but we have these other great features. There’s text boxes you can type in, and buttons you can click, and even smilies.