Search - hit and miss results?

[vidmarc]

I'm in the process of merging threads, but when searching for threads with the same words in the title, the search function isn't returning all the threads.

Example:

The Deer Hunter:

http://www.anchorbay.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=1546

Advanced Search -> Search Titles Only ->Show Results as Threads ->
Deer Hunter -> "Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms."

Yet the thread clearly exists - this is making my task much harder, as I'm forced to manually look through each forum. Is there a reason for this problem?

[Colin F]

What search method are you using?

[vidmarc]

I'm using the advanced search function here:

http://www.anchorbay.co.uk/forum/search.php

[Colin F]

Are you using the vBulletin Search, or the Fulltext search?

[vidmarc]

How can I find out? I'm using the default settings.

[edit]

OK, please excuse my ignorance - I just found this:
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Your forum is currently using the vBulletin search engine.

To enable the MySQL Fulltext search, we will issue the following two queries. If for some reason this process is unsuccessful, you will need to perform these queries manually. Please be patient as this can take from 10 seconds to an hour depending on the number of posts on your forum.

ALTER TABLE post ADD FULLTEXT INDEX (title,pagetext)
ALTER TABLE thread ADD FULLTEXT INDEX (title)
Empty postindex and word tables?This can also be done from the Maintenance section later.
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What does 'Empty postindex and word tables' mean exactly? Should I do this?

[Colin F]

No, you don't need to.
Try rebuilding the search index though, in your
AdminCP -> Maintenance -> Update Counters

[vidmarc]

Wow, that's made a fantastic difference - thanks!

[vidmarc]

The search function is way better than before, but it still doesn't return all results. Here's a example:

Thread title = "From Beyond"

http://www.anchorbay.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=9747

Advanced Search -> Search Titles Only ->Show Results as Threads ->
From Beyond
-> "Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms."

Is there a way of fine-tuning the search function?