# Search question **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 21, 2004, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-question/256215 "2004-07-21T18:16:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-question/256215/1 "2004-07-21T18:16:48Z")
Lately (as in, I’ve only noticed this in the past few months) when I do a search on a user (like, perhaps, myself), I don’t get many recent threads in which I’ve posted (today, for example, a search returns none of the threads in which I’ve posted to today). Anyone know why that is? ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-question/256215/2 "2004-07-21T19:08:59Z")
I think **Lynn** has posted about this somewhere. Basically she said that the search program is haphazard and inefficient and that them’s the breaks. If you search during a less busy time (say, early Sunday morning Central time) you may get more accurate results. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-question/256215/3 "2004-07-22T12:43:25Z")
There also seems to be some sort of time lag between the time a post gets posted, and the time when the search function can recognize it. ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-question/256215/4 "2004-07-22T12:49:40Z")
It also helps if you’ll choose advanced search and then narrow the time frame down. Make it a day or since your last visit. Another is to use your profile and list your posts that way. But like Dex and H/H said the system ain’t quite perfect, yet. Maybe w/ another $10/year… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-question/256215/5 "2004-08-02T15:44:22Z")
Uh, why does it do that? Wouldn’t it be pretty easy for a computer to do a simple search for all posts by a user? I mean, we’re not asking it to find hidden messages in the Bible. And I found this thread not through the search (looking up “search” didn’t come up with it, not so ironically) but by ctrl-Fing (sounds so wrong) the word “search” in ATMB. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-question/256215/6 "2004-08-02T17:49:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Uh, why does it do that? > > Wouldn’t it be pretty easy for a computer to do a simple search for all posts by a user? I mean, we’re not asking it to find hidden messages in the Bible. It would be pretty easy, if that were all the computer were asked to do, and had plenty of time doing it. As it is, it’s also trying to fill everyone else’s searches, and bring up pages for folks reading, and add new posts to the database, and formatting previews, and adding newly-registered users to the database, and probably a dozen other tasks I’m forgetting or never new about. As it is, the server’s situation is rather like that of a single mother of two teenagers, a pre-teen, a preschooler, and a toddler, who can’t even answer the doorbell without being interrupted twice by each of them. So sometimes the eggs get burned, and the mail gets left in the refrigerator, and the search results get lost behind the couch cushions. ---
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2004, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search-question/256215/7 "2004-08-03T18:18:24Z")
So… What can be done about it?