After some complaints about the search feature and how hard it is to find things here I decided to create a guide that will help you understand how to search for topics or posts here.

By default, I have set up Google Site Search for most searches. Generally speaking, the most relevant search results will be found here.

If you're looking for a thread that is in a member's only forum then you will need to do a couple of things.

1. Go to Options in your UserCP and set your default thread cutoff age to All Threads if it is not already set.
2. Select Advanced Search directly under that site search form.

Once in Advanced Search you have a number of options including searching for posts by certain users or searching in specific forums. I recommend you sort by relevance as opposed by post date. It is also useful to search titles only at first to limit your search results.

Here are some additional guidelines for search terms:

1. The minimum search term is 4 characters in length.

2. To search for expressions which include spaces, use the # symbol (do not use quotes)

eg. puritan#board will return matches for both puritan board and puritanboard

3. AND and OR Boolean searches

a. Judea and Samaria will return all threads which mention both countries

b. Judea or Samaria will return threads which name either

c. Judea and not Samaria (or Judea -Samaria) will return matches which mention one but not the other

4. The asterisk wildcard

a. com*uter will return matches to both computer and commuter

b. it can be combined with the boolean operators: com*uter and not computer will exclude computer from the search results

5. If you need to search for terms shorter than the 4-letter limit then append an asterik

e.g. God* will return God but also Godly, Godliness, etc...