# Building A Search
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/building-a-search/774380
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [December 10, 2016, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/building-a-search/774380 "2016-12-10T20:42:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2016, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/building-a-search/774380/1 "2016-12-10T20:42:22Z")
Can dummy or skeleton characters be used (i.e., blog\* = blogs, blogged, blogging)? And, what about typical Boolean operators? (i.e., AND, OR, NOT)
---
### Author:  [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2016, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/building-a-search/774380/2 "2016-12-10T20:47:29Z")
P.S. Have you folks at the Straight Dope tested your search engine lately? Because I am suspicious why it won’t find anything.
---
### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/building-a-search/774380/3 "2016-12-10T20:49:28Z")
After years of using search engines with a great deal of success, I have found that “problems” are almost always due to user incompetence.
---
### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2016, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/building-a-search/774380/4 "2016-12-10T21:07:41Z")
IME, reality may differ …
The \* character works as a wildcard. blog\* = blogs, blogged, blogging as you’d expect. You could have tested this yourself faster than making the post.
Three-letter words are ignored in the index and the search so some \* expressions won’t find words you might think they should. e.g. bo\* finds bother but not bot.
AND, OR, and NOT are ignored since they’re not considered commands, they’re simply short words to be ignored.
---
### Author:  [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2016, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/building-a-search/774380/5 "2016-12-19T00:58:23Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> IME, reality may differ …
>
> The \* character works as a wildcard. blog\* = blogs, blogged, blogging as you’d expect. You could have tested this yourself faster than making the post.
>
> Three-letter words are ignored in the index and the search so some \* expressions won’t find words you might think they should. e.g. bo\* finds bother but not bot.
>
> AND, OR, and NOT are ignored since they’re not considered commands, they’re simply short words to be ignored.
Yes, I could have tested this, but I’m not sure if the searches were working correctly in the first place. Thus, I needed validation from the SD Board as a benchmark, you see.