Remove the three character search limit

[sarkwalvein]

Dear Tempers and staff, I would like to suggest removing the three characters search limit, that makes terms with 3 or less characters be ignored on a forum search.

Imagine for example that you want to look for threads on the topic "3DS RTS games", so you do a search for thread titles containing "3DS RTS games"... what do you get?

Well, all threads that contains "games" on the title, what about 3DS, or RTS? ignored... so useful.

There are many other three character terms that might be common for searching, like RPG, FPS, GBA, PSP, PS4, WII, CFW, XCI, NCA, NSP, CIA, FBI, HDD, GUI, FTP, RCM, ROM, etc.
The same can also be said even for two character terms like E3, 4K, HD, SD, Ys, etc.

Searching for thread including those kind of terms only in their title is quite useful and would be very nice to have that feature.

PS: If this feels like déjà vu, it is because probably you've already seen it before https://gbatemp.net/threads/remove-the-search-limits.403810/

 

[Issac]

I think the problem is that it would be really taxing to allow so short searches (but that's just a guess).

One way to search for those things though, is to google

"3ds rts game site:gbatemp.net" for example. It's a way around it at least

 

[sarkwalvein]

Well, that's not optimal but at least it is a usable workaround.

 

[thekarter104]

Google does a much better job anyways. Search term + GBATemp always does the job.
But yeah, I agree with removing the short limit ^^

 

[Brayton]

I also agree. I use Bing instead of Google, I think Bing won't use the workaround.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

I also agree. I use Bing instead of Google, I think Bing won't use the workaround.

Bing uses most of the same search options as Google. What Issac listed above works on Bing, as well as every other half decent search engine.

Regarding the issue, the entire search function itself needs a good overhaul IMO (as mentioned, Google is so much better than the stock Xenforo search). I imagine the 3 letter limit is something built into the default search function of Xenforo, and can't be changed without changing the plug-in. From what I recall, nearly every Xenforo site I've used has the same limit.