Need help understanding why Advanced Search doesn't work like I expect it to

[havilah 10]

My search terms are thusly:

 

Search for an item: Dancing Stage

All these words

Ticked: Search the Title Only

Words to exclude: Dance

 

Result? No results found

 

But this is incorrect because there are quite a few items with Dancing Stage in the title, e.g. Dancing Stage Fusion PS2 -

http://www.bidorbuy.co.za/item/69952322/Dancing_Stage_Fusion_PS2.html

 

If I have nothing at Words to exclude, then the results include hits that don't match my search terms, e.g. Cherry Waist Link Colorful Jewels Golden Beads + Sequins Belly Dance Stages - http://www.bidorbuy.co.za/item/70238856/Cherry_Waist_Link_Colorful_Jewels_Golden_Beads_Sequins_Belly_Dance_Stages.html

 

Is it possible to phrase my search term so that the results are only accurate direct hits in titles and no close matches? Must be possible - I just can't seem to figure it out.

Edited July 14, 2012 by havilah
URL

[Thierry Henry 10]

It's a terrible search engine. Really is.

I concentrate mainly on the gaming section and find similar problems when trying to use the 'advanced search' or just any type of search.

For example, let's say were looking for a PS2 console, it will throw at you a variety of nonsensical items the majority of which have absolutely nothing to do with the playstation brand. And it's like this for any other brand as well. So everything becomes a very laborious process of checking every individual listing one-by-one to find exactly what you're looking for.

[havilah 10]

Thierry Henry

 

At least I know I'm not alone, but my question then changes to why can't we do an exact search? This was rather perplexing because I distinctly remember from my Computer Science 101 days a project involving writing code to search through a database. It's not that difficult.

 

Now I think I might've stumbled onto one of the reasons why our searches apparently inexplicably include or exclude listings. It's not necessarily the search code as such, but rather the data being searched. When I wanted to include details of the two examples in my original post, I did a copy/paste from the individual listings as presented in the search results. I found that what I'd thought was the title, in actual fact wasn't the title at all.

 

(Rats, the Dancing Stage Fusion example from my original post has in the meantime been deleted - but that's a whole 'nother story, not for this thread.)

 

OK, so we look at a different example, like this one:

"Title" in search results: Dancing Stage Fusion

URL: http:// www.bidorbuy.co.za/item/68920344/Dancing_Stage_Fusion.html

Web page title: Music & Dance - Dancing Stage Fusion for sale in Pretoria / Tshwane (ID:68920344)

 

I strongly suspect that the Advanced Search is searching through the web page titles and not the (dunno what to call them..) item titles. This would explain why, when I exclude the word "dance", I get no results.

 

Am I correct? BoB moderator?

 

(Edit: I had unticked the "automatically parse links" option in the posting options but the URL was changed to a link instead of leaving the URL as is - I've now added a space after the // and the preview shows it's being left as text as I intended.)

Edited July 15, 2012 by havilah
URL, again