vBulletin Internal Search Settings Busted

[MSW]

I'm fiddling with the vBulletin internal search settings to try and give priority ti results where the search term is in the thread title. I tried tweaking the settings to no avail and then I went bold with the following settings and still I can't get even a single result with my search term at the top of the list:

Search Relevance Multi-Word Match Bonus Score: 0
Search Relevance Date Score: 0
Search Relevance Thread Title Score: 40
Search Relevance Post Title Score: 0

Shouldn't that propel matches where the word is in the thread title to the top?


Has anyone successfully used the Thread Title Score setting or is it just there for show?

[Jake Bunce]

The search that you are using to test your new settings might be cached. Try running this query on your database to manually clear the search cache between tests:

DELETE FROM search

Also make sure each forum is set to index posts:

Admin CP -> Forums & Moderators -> Forum Manager -> Edit Forum -> Index New Posts in Search Engine

Also note that searches use group permissions. If a user doesn't have access to view threads in a specific forum then the search will not find any results in that forum.

Also check which search engine you are using:

Admin CP -> vBulletin Options -> Search Type (on the left, not the right)

If you are using fulltext then run a repair to ensure that the search index is up-to-date:

Admin CP -> Maintenance -> Repair / Optimize Tables

If you are using the vBulletin search engine then you can run a rebuild in your:

Admin CP -> Maintenance -> Update Counters -> Rebuild Search Index

[MSW]

Jake - it's not cached. I am using vBulletin search and rebuilt my indexes last night. The pages I want returned are coming back, just not in any sensible order.

I'm no vBulletin expert, but looking into the search.php code, it appears the value for Search Relevance Thread Title Score, $threadtitlescore, is ignored completely.

[Jake Bunce]

Did you select Relevancy on the advanced search page under Sort Results by?

Also, those relevance settings might only apply to the vBulletin search engine and not fulltext.

[MSW]

Did you select Relevancy on the advanced search page under Sort Results by?

Also, those relevance settings might only apply to the vBulletin search engine and not fulltext.

They do indeed apply only to vBulletin search (luckily for me, as I answered above, I am using vBulletin search) and obviouslly I am searching by relevancy. I know it's your way top trust the software and assume I'm doing something wrong, but go ahead and test this and you'll see I'm correct and the software is not working correctly.

[Jake Bunce]

If you can reproduce it on the default software then feel free to post a bug report:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/project.php?projectid=6

The devs will take a look.

I don't seem to be having this problem on my test forum. I usually don't recommend modifying the search relevance options. The defaults are already set appropriately.

[MSW]

I don't seem to be having this problem on my test forum.

You're telling me that threads that contain your search term(s) in the thread title are prioritized over other threads that only contain the term(s) in the post body but are more recent? Please give me the URL.

[Jake Bunce]

My test forum is private.