That’s all. Can’t y’all fix this for premium members?
Dammit, I pay for this site and I should have the ability to do more than one search every 2 minutes
Here you go. All fixed, just for you. Don’t tell anyone else about it! 
Hey, don’t interrupt my bad mood with the facts!
If I could upvote or “like” John Mace’s post, I would. 
No comment on the OP’s question, but I just saw Flamsterette_X is back and posting! Welcome back!
I’m not even a paid member, and I find the 2 minute search thing a bit of an annoyance… No other forum that I’ve ever been on has that sort of rule… especially for paid members. They should at least remove the limit for paid members, or reduce the limit to (say) 30 seconds for all members.
IIRC it came from a time when the board was bogged down by too many members using the SD at a time, search was singled out as a big resource hog. Don’t know whey it’s still there, and it’s also still annoying.
I use Google with the “site:” option. It’s the only way I can get search to work.
Yeah, I do that as well. For example, if I want to see if the SDMB has any topics to do with radio, I can type radio site:boards.straightdope.com into Google, and hope that I can find a reasonably current thread about radio stations etc.
I’m sure there are more effective ways of using the site:boards.straightdope.com search query, but hey, my method works!
While we don’t have performance issues as often as we used to, we do still suffer from performance issues from time to time. As the last complaints were only a few months ago, I wouldn’t expect them to lower the timer any time soon.
Too easy …
I beg to differ. Unless a mod or admin corrects me, it is my understanding that the 2 minute limit was imposed because it was thought that too-frequent searches caused problems. I don’t think that was ever proved, but the admins have decided to err on the side of caution and not change it.
It’s a lot like the guy who was spotted carrying a telephone pole down the road.
“Why are you carrying that heavy pole?”
“To keep the elephants away.”
“That’s silly, here are no elephants here!”
“See – it works!”
I saw that and thought this was a zombie.
I love when the search doesn’t actually do anything so I have to type in the search string again and the board tells me I have to wait 116 seconds.
Don’t forget that just a few weeks ago the board came under attack and we were all blocked from logging in for a couple of days. If someone wants to do this then issuing repeated search requests is a great way. Putting a limit blocks the malicious arseholes. Still, I think it could be safely reduced to 30 seconds.
BTW, I think using Google is worse than the board’s search engine.
I agree, the only thing I use the Google search for is strings that include words on the prohibited list.
I agree. And I agree with Saint Cad that the fruitless searching is really aggravating when you have to wait for 116 seconds to try again.
Also, how hard could a pilot of a different time limit be?
That’s weird, because I have never once gotten a successful search on the board’s search option.
What’s really weird is that for some people, the search function here is pretty much completely broken, but for other people it works perfectly fine. And then there are some folks in between the two extremes. I have no idea why this is.
Maybe the board’s search feature ought to just automatically forward you to a Google search, since that clearly works better.