Re: Problems seraching newsgroups with Google groups..

Michel S. wrote:
FU2: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general

Hello,

Some months ago, I noticed some changes in the newsgroups search results provided by Google.

First, I found the number of hits very small compared to what I was used to. Second, many of these hits are part of the same thread, which was not the case before. Finally, a search for some of my own posts made 2 years ago was unsuccessful.

This morning, I made a simple search ("Excel 2003", without quotes) and got NO result - which is impossible since my newsreader shows many posts with these words on the subject line in the last few days only !!

Here's the search url :
http://groups.google.ca/groups/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=excel+2003

My Google preferences are set to : french interface, search pages written in french & english, no safe search filter, 50 results per page. I tried to change these settings, but at no avail.

Anybody noticed the same problem ? Has an explanation ? A solution or work around ?

I have noticed the same problem. My guess is that Google is using less key words (a database?) to search older posts over time. I suspect that there is not any kind of keyword refresh mechanism for posts that do not contain a Reply link. My solution is to save my old posts and any particularly promising posts as text files (N.B., don't put a bunch of files in your root directory). I have saved over half of my posts to CDMA and MPA to my hard drive so far. I should create a database that gleans all the words from those posts and uses them to create records in a search table. I also put the URL of the message or thread at the top of the text file. Also, in a private email, Jeff Conrad recommended Tony Toews' Newsgroup database as a useful way to help organize information:

http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/newsgroupanswersmdb.htm

I hope Jeff won't mind me citing the following quote from that email:

"I have been using this for a very long time and it has been an invaluable resource in keeping things organized for me. I began adding links, code, article information, etc into this database a long time ago and just continue to add to it each week. If I see an interesting tidbit of code or a new twist on doing something I will copy all the text from that newsgroup post and put into this database. I try and name each entry with something that will help me find it later. For example, I have quite a few entries dealing with Access Security so I always title those entries with Security - ......... For any Switchboard Manager Questions I title them Switchboard - .....

By doing it this way, all the common items stay close together in alphabetical order. Make sense?"

James A. Fortune
MPAPoster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

Relevant Pages

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