What on EARTH!?

[acw]

ABE my lovely,

How on EARTH is it, that when I wrote a question about smart little hyperlinks, and the "has your question been asked before?" options popped up, it included a question on removing tree sap stains from clothing!?!?!?! 

(You'll be pleased to know that my question HAD been asked before and I got the answer and so DIDN'T post a duplicate question.)

However, WHO or WHAT controls your "has this been asked before" thingy?  Cos hyperlinks and tree sap are most definitely NOT linked!  ABE - please do explain! :-)

Has anyone else found crazy suggestions popping up?  A slice of e-choccy cake to the past reports!

[AngelofDeath]

I've noticed this before. It seems to search for any previous question containing any of the keywords from your question.

So, a question in Jobs & Careers about 'climbing the ladder of success' may pull out questions in Home & Garden about 'ladders' or questions in Sport about 'climbing'.

[acw]

So perhaps the tree sap post contained the word "here"! :-p  Crazy business!  Like your example though! :-)

[jno]

not only that, the googlised ads alongside this thread invite me to find a local lawyer anywhere in the USA, insure my Peurgeot, or ask the Mystic 8 ball a question. Maybe AB Ed is a Mystic 8 ball?

[AngelofDeath]

It ignores simple words like a, at, this, and, that etc.

It has been requested, in the past, that the search facility be modified to search for phrases as well as individual words, just like Google does. However, I believe ABank had problems with achieving this.

A good example of this is if you search the site for "Vanilla Sky". Use the category search on the home page. Whether you put the quotes in or not you will get the same list of answers. The first one is "disney trickery", which has the word sky in the question.

[Ralph]

I agree acw, it's a bit useless. I went looking for a specific thread I'd seen only two days ago and when I put a relevant search term into the search box, it was either unfindable in the results, or simply not there.

For a while now, I've been thinking about posting a suggestion for a new game. It's a derivation of a Googlewhack, let's call it an ABwhack. It's where you put something into the search box and click Go. If you find something useful in the results, that's an ABwhack! I haven't managed it yet.

In all seriousness, would it be possible to put the date of the posting beside its entry in the search results? This would make it even a little bit more useful because you could neglect all the old ones. (I'm asking AB Ed, not you acw!)

[kaktus]

Not forgetting dog training jno, sorry acw had to laugh at the google ads, I normally never notice them :0)

[acw]

Don't apologise kaktus! :-)  I'm a chat-friendly user!  Always pleased to facilitate the spreading of happiness and joy!  Very amusing the ads are too!

[kaktus]

Yes it seems, that when the machine can't figure out what the key words on a site are, it just pops something out, in hope it might get lucky :0)

[woofgang]

I have NEVER found what I was looking for using the AB search engine!!!

[acw]

Is it correct that the AB search engine and the "has this been posted before?" thing run through the same thing? Judging by your answers everyone, I presume so! No wonder we get so many repeat questions.

Mind you - people doing silly titles doesn't help! *mutters to self something about pot, kettle and black*. Teehee!

[jno]

bother, I can't Insure My Peugeot any more - so how am I going to Catch My Cheating Spouse?? I'd ask the Mystic 8 Ball only now it's just a Magic 8 Ball. (kaktus, I didn't get anything about training my dog - is it because you're outside the UK perhaps?)

[jno]

oh... and as soon as I posted that, My Cheating Spouse vanished, to be replaced by a Solicitor in Shropshire. Weird

[Thunderchild]

well after the first two questions i posted i got fed up with looking through the list of things that were obviously not anything to do with my Q and now just take the page as a confirmation page for posting. the purpose of the page is totaly boycoted by its ineficiency and i am sure that many others just don't bother to read thru and just confirm to post

[kaktus]

It could be jno, I can get legal help, if that doesn't help with anything I can always ask the magic 8 ball, if I want to sue the magic 8 ball I can go to another legal firm, if they don't behave I can take them to dog training and after they have bitten me because the training didn't go well I can ask 500 different medical forums about attorney bites.

You don't do this in the UK? We do this sort of thing all the time in Denmark...

[acw]

Hey guys,

Whilst your banter is witty and amusing, getting lots of automated emails won't be!  I don't mean to sound like a miserable s0d, but please can the great advert humour be continued in a new thread in the advert section?

Thanks! :-)  (And sorry!)

acw

x

[elgroucho]

acw, you should be able to 'unsubscribe' from your own question and stop getting the automated e-mails. If you look to the right of the screen near the top there is a box with a link for you to click if you're satisfied with the answers you already have and don't want to be bothered with more alerts.

[acw]

I tired that before and the emails kept coming! :-(  Like I said - I don't mean to be a grumpy so-and-so!  I'll try it though, elgroucho - thanks! :-)