Why eliminate three letter words?
 

First off, just want to mention that I tried searching for this topic, and got the following message, "The following words are either very common, too long, or too short and were not included in your search: three." Seeing as though the remaining search terms, "Letter" & "Words" don't lead me anywhere relevant...I started a new thread.

What is the logic behind not allowing three letter words to be searched? I was trying to do a search on "open jaw awards" and guess what? Couldn't find anything due to "jaw" being eliminated. I know that there are common words like "the" that need to get weeded out but they already are by the logic above.

The Google search workaround works most of the time, but not when trying to search a specific forum. So searches for DL open jaw awards domestic were turning up information from every forum, because posters who are members of DL have DL in their profile, which google searches.

Anyway, I find the three letter knock-out eliminates a lot of useful words.

If there's a thread already, point me there. But don't point me to the seventeen-page master search thread...I can't search it for the word "three."

Go to google. in the search type "site:flyertalk.com open jaw tickets"

I pretty much just use google now.

Yes, there's a thread but it happens to be the currently 34-page master search problems thread. :D

I believe IB folks had (sort of) addressed the 3-letter issue in here and here (i.e. page 31).

BTW, I didn't use search to get results.;) I remember it had been asked and addressed recently, then decided to start looking from page 30.

Except that I was specifically looking for the policy from one airline, which google does not do so well on. When you search "DL (or Delta) open jaw tickets" you wind up with all the discussions of United, American, etc. open jaw tickets in which a Delta member participated....because it is in their profile.

Thanks. I don't usually hang out in the technical issues forum...so didn't have my experience to go on. Thanks.

You are welcome!

I think I'd spent too much time peeking and whining in Technical Issues & Support fora. Giving the current status of FT on search & "progress" in wiki post feature, I am trying to cut it down. :p;)

Three-letter word searches are still possible, but now require that you surround the word with quotation marks. Also, surrounding a series of words in quotation marks will find a result set that matches the series of words.

So, for example, you would probably retrieve the best results by doing a search on "open jaw award" (in quotations) in the Delta SkyMiles forum. Notice I removed the "s" from awards, as you would want to expand rather than limit the matches as much as possible. If this word combination still proved too limiting, you might try searching on just "open jaw".

These search parameters will probably give you better results than a Google search because you can limit the results to a selected forum. Google search is, of course, very good though, so it should always be considered as part of the mix.

I hope this is helpful.

Thank you! That first part is esp. helpful. I had seen the note about surrounding a three letter word in quotes...but for some reason had gotten the impression that it only worked for airport codes (I believe LAX was the example used). I did not know that a quoted phrase would be searched that way (is that new?).

Honestly, even I sometimes have a difficult time remembering how long a feature has existed :D

I'm pretty sure the ability to place quotations around a search term has been around for quite some time though (that seems vague enough to keep me out of trouble with anyone who might be maintaining a timeline, so that's what I'm going with :p )

Good strategy, Mikel!

I am sure Dovster would be able to call you out if you'd given a (wrong) timeline. :D I seem to take a few FT history lessons from him. :p

ETA:
I believe having a search that delivers is much more important than pinpointing the timeline.

I also think it will be more helpful for our IT folks to share more tips about the new search, such as how to take advantage of quotations around the key term. It's frustrating when the first page of the search result contains none of the threads you specifically have in mind. Even more frustrating when search returns either no result or a handful of threads dated back to 2001 or 2004 or something.

Amen!!

Well, I'm glad I posted, rather than wallow in ignorance!