Discussion
I am planning to buy a new-ish MINI, and wanted to see if any owners had posted their opinions of the relevant model in 'Readers Cars'.
So:
1) I click "Search" at the top... There's only one text box with no filters or search options... OK, I search for "MINI"
2) I get 70,000+ irrelevant results, so at the left I want to un-tick every forum apart from Readers Cars... It took TWENTY NINE clicks to achieve that
3) It's sorted by relevance, but the first result is an 8 year old thread about a Megane... Second thread also 8 years old, about a Punto... Third thread about a Mazda CX-5... It's not until the fourth one that the title even has the word "mini" in it! In the entire page of 25 results, only 7 threads are about Minis! And this is sorted by relevance!
4) I think... Maybe I should only look at more recent ones, since it's a 2014+ model. So I sort by 'Last Update Time'
5) Ah... By default it sorts from oldest to newest... Surely 90%+ of people who search by date are looking for the newest topics first? So, change the sort to descending
6) Results are still completely irrelevant.
I'm about 14 million clicks in at this point, and have no idea whether anyone has ever posted a thread in Readers Cars about a 2014+ MINI.
Where's the "search post titles only" option?
Where's the option to only search one forum without 29 clicks?
Why do I have to go through the initial "text box only" page before I'm offered any filters?
So:
1) I click "Search" at the top... There's only one text box with no filters or search options... OK, I search for "MINI"
2) I get 70,000+ irrelevant results, so at the left I want to un-tick every forum apart from Readers Cars... It took TWENTY NINE clicks to achieve that
3) It's sorted by relevance, but the first result is an 8 year old thread about a Megane... Second thread also 8 years old, about a Punto... Third thread about a Mazda CX-5... It's not until the fourth one that the title even has the word "mini" in it! In the entire page of 25 results, only 7 threads are about Minis! And this is sorted by relevance!
4) I think... Maybe I should only look at more recent ones, since it's a 2014+ model. So I sort by 'Last Update Time'
5) Ah... By default it sorts from oldest to newest... Surely 90%+ of people who search by date are looking for the newest topics first? So, change the sort to descending
6) Results are still completely irrelevant.
I'm about 14 million clicks in at this point, and have no idea whether anyone has ever posted a thread in Readers Cars about a 2014+ MINI.
Where's the "search post titles only" option?
Where's the option to only search one forum without 29 clicks?
Why do I have to go through the initial "text box only" page before I'm offered any filters?
Unexpected Item In Bagging Area said:
Search is crap; always has been, always will be as no-one knows how to make the site work properly. You could try Googling "2014 Mini site: pistonheads.com" but you'll get lots of adverts and only the odd thread here and there.
*don't leave a space between the colon and p
*don't leave a space between the colon and p
site:pistonheads.com/gassing/will limit the results to just the forums.
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