*****KatKwery! - Sep 20 - 11 more days*****

Marianjela continued her streak by using there. Laureen227 used the word more, and GoldyCat won with quote. Study and nothing got nothing.

Today's KatKwiz was about the simple search function.

We have been in the advanced search so much that the Kats totally overlooked just doing a simple search. Do you ever do a simple search? When you do a simple search do you know which parts of TCS are searched; what about the fine articles in Cat Behavior, do they get searched? Thinking back to yesterday, using the simple search and entering Cat Behavior, what do you expect to get back? Are there any functions in the simple search like we had yesterday; for example the AND and OR functions? Yesterday we saw the difference in what would happen using the quote sign (") in a search. Will the quote sign alter the way the simple search works?

Originally Posted by Persi & Alley

We have been in the advanced search so much that the Kats totally overlooked just doing a simple search. Do you ever do a simple search? When you do a simple search do you know which parts of TCS are searched; what about the fine articles in Cat Behavior, do they get searched? Thinking back to yesterday, using the simple search and entering Cat Behavior, what do you expect to get back? Are there any functions in the simple search like we had yesterday; for example the AND and OR functions? Yesterday we saw the difference in what would happen using the quote sign (") in a search. Will the quote sign alter the way the simple search works?

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I've done a bunch of simple searches. I did one a few weeks ago when I was trying to figure out what cat fountain to buy for the girls. After reading through a bunch of threads, I decided on the Drinkwell because so many people recommended it. I've also used a simple search when trying to find a new food or when I've seen a new food at the store and want to know if someone else posted a topic on it. When I do a simple search, it's usually when I'm in the forum topic that I'm looking for. Like for the food questions, I search under Health and Nutrition, or the water fountain was Care and Grooming. I usually use the quotes sign when i do my searches. If you don't you come up with a post that might have used one of the words, and not the whole phrase. I like to be able to narrow down what I am looking for by using the quotes sign.

Originally Posted by yam102284

I've done a bunch of simple searches. I did one a few weeks ago when I was trying to figure out what cat fountain to buy for the girls. After reading through a bunch of threads, I decided on the Drinkwell because so many people recommended it. I've also used a simple search when trying to find a new food or when I've seen a new food at the store and want to know if someone else posted a topic on it. When I do a simple search, it's usually when I'm in the forum topic that I'm looking for. Like for the food questions, I search under Health and Nutrition, or the water fountain was Care and Grooming. I usually use the quotes sign when i do my searches. If you don't you come up with a post that might have used one of the words, and not the whole phrase. I like to be able to narrow down what I am looking for by using the quotes sign.

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I think it's funny how cats like fresh running water. I mean, they go to extreme measures to get it sometimes, like trying to drink out of a faucet when you are brushing your teeth when they have their very own clean bowl sitting on the floor.

When I was younger we had a cat that would run to the faucet whenever she heard it - never failed. She'd hear the faucet, b-line up the stairs, bounce off the toilet and into the sink she'd go. Once, someone forgot to close the lid to the toilet. I dont have to go into detail what happened!

Do you ever do a simple search?
I usually do a simple search first and only go to the advanced search if I don't find exactly what I want. I am almost always in a specific forum where I expect to find the answers I need when I do a search. If I don't get the best results, I then go to advanced search and click on "all open forums." Obviously that will not get me to the Previous Expert Forums that are already closed. I supposed I could go to the main forum page and do a simple search there. Okay, I'm rambling. I know. Just thinking out loud here.

When you do a simple search do you know which parts of TCS are searched; what about the fine articles in Cat Behavior, do they get searched?
As far as I can tell the search in done only in forums. I've never found a search options for the entire TCS site, and believe me, I've looked. So, no, I don't believe the articles in the Cat Behavior area of the site are searched.

Thinking back to yesterday, using the simple search and entering Cat Behavior, what do you expect to get back?
I would expect to get threads from the Behavior forum and any other threads that mention cat behavior.

Are there any functions in the simple search like we had yesterday; for example the AND and OR functions? Yesterday we saw the difference in what would happen using the quote sign (") in a search. Will the quote sign alter the way the simple search works?
I think maybe the simple search assumes quotation marks around phrases that you type in. Otherwise any phrase containing the word "cat" would pull up almost every post on the site. I'm going to have to do some experimenting with this one.

Well after yesterday, I purposely waited half a day to answer this thing so let's see if there is any secret words left for me to play and if I can hit on them...

I do simple searches all the time, probably daily and a lot of the time they are because of the KatKwiz or KatKwery! If I dont hit on anything with a simple search then I always move on to the more advanced search to find what I am looking for, but in the interest of saving time... I do the simple searches first.

No matter what type of search you are doing the search engine only looks through the forums. Nothing from the TCS articles or blogs (ie, Cat Snips, Cat Health, Cat Shop, Cat Behavior) are included in the TCS search engine. This fact is reinforced when you do an advanced search by the included scroll bar on the right hand side allowing you to narrow your search by forum or sub-forum (child forum or parent forum).

Whenever I do a search, most of the time, I try to remember to click on the "show posts" option. Mainly because I dont want to have to dig through a thread and like when the post I am looking for is displayed.

If you do a search on Google or Yahoo; however, the articles written by TCS are often included.

If I do a search on "cat Behavior" without the quotes, I expect to get back articles or rather posts and/or threads with that word in it. However, sometimes a word is used so frequently that it is often excluded in the results. But in this case, none of them are excluded. I got 2500 hits. I imagine that there are more, but that the search engine limits the hits to that number.

If I do the same search with quotes I get the same results. If I search for "Cat and Behavior", again the hits are the same. Now, if I do a search for "cat or behavior" sans the quotes, the pages times out. I guess because the word cat is probably used so frequent that the site has a hard time searching through it all.

So I change my search words. Let's try *peeing bed*

When I enter it without quotes it yields 567 threads. The first of which displays "bed peeing" in the title. My words are there, only reversed.

So I now enter the same words but with quotes. Again it returns the same results, with the same thread being listed as number one. It appears that it has discarded my quotes and included the phrase anyway.

Entering the same words again, this time with the conjunction "and" produces the exact results again. BUT, inserting the words with "or" creates NEW results. 2500 results. So it appears that using some of our tricks or joining words never affects the results except for the use of "or".

I might be tempted to use a larger phrase with the quotes to see if that affects the end product, but it is getting late. Maybe tomorrow, if I get on before the next Kwery is posted.

On second thought, seeing as though I inadvertently answered the rest of the questions anyway, I might as well test it out also.

Going into the Cat Lounge, one of the first threads I see is "I love William Shatner". So lets use this as an example. I dont imagine that these words or this phrase is all too common on TCS.

Test #1: I love William Shatner with no quotes.
Results: "showing results 9" the word "I" was omitted because "The following words are either very common, too long, or too short and were not included in your search"

Test #2: I love William Shatner with quotes.
Results: same 9 outcomes, with the word "I" again being left out.

Test #3: I love William Shatner with the AND function
Results: I tested several possibilities, using the word "and" between just William and Shatner, and also using it between all words. It supplied the same 9 results.

Test #4: I love William OR Shatner
Results: 77 threads!

And there you have it...

Marian's unofficial TCS simple search study.

Good night everyone!

...and lest I forget - thanks Lee and his most generous samaritans for the points today!

ETA - the fact that you can only do a search when you are entered in the Cat Forums is another tip-off that it only returns the results from within that category.

To test this theory, I entered the phrase "Pet Sitters – A Pet Owner's Guide" without the quotation marks, and zero results were found. But this book is in fact on TheCatSite in the Cat Care section, under an article written by Anne Moss called Cat Boarding Guide

If you do this same search using your browser's search engine, the desired result on TCS is included within the first 20 hits.

I'm going to bed for good now.

Night.

Originally Posted by Persi & Alley

Marianjela continued her streak by using there. Laureen227 used the word more, and GoldyCat won with quote. Study and nothing got nothing.

Today's KatKwiz was about the simple search function.

We have been in the advanced search so much that the Kats totally overlooked just doing a simple search. Do you ever do a simple search? When you do a simple search do you know which parts of TCS are searched; what about the fine articles in Cat Behavior, do they get searched? Thinking back to yesterday, using the simple search and entering Cat Behavior, what do you expect to get back? Are there any functions in the simple search like we had yesterday; for example the AND and OR functions? Yesterday we saw the difference in what would happen using the quote sign (") in a search. Will the quote sign alter the way the simple search works?

Click to expand...

I very rarely do a simple search since it takes you to the advanced search anyway. At least it does for me If I search for cat behavior, I expect to have posts about cat behavior. I feel that the quotes do effect the way that search work in that it would just use those words.