I must be using the search function wrong.

[Grasswire2]

More than once, I have searched to see if a story has already been posted. Nothing comes up via the search feature, and so I post the story. A few minutes later, I see that someone already has posted it a while earlier, and replies have established it.

Why didn't that turn up in my search?

[procon]

1. It's been my experience that the search function

does not work as expected. Maybe the programming to limit the results are baked in, but I never get any current posts to show up. The frustration means go to Google to search DU, and bypass the useless search engine here. It certainly isn't the best arrangement.

[Dennis Donovan]

2. Advanced Search or the straight-up Google search?

With the google search, I'll keyword-search and then filter by time (to the last 24 hrs). Seems to work ok for me.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Have you been using Advanced Search - upper right corner?

I use that all the time, but you need to choose your parameters. I generally add the relevant word or phrase and do a search of the Main Forums, but you can change that to All Forums and Groups or a specific Forum or Group - like if you're checking to see if a story was already posted in LBN. The fallback time parameter is for the past month, but if you're looking for something older, you can change that to the start of DU.3 (December 2011) or just for the last day since a lot gets posted here in a month. I admit it takes practice.