Using the search function efficiently?
- Thread starter SkAoUt
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Weird Harold
Opinionated Old Fart
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- Mar 1, 2000
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SkAoUt said:
The forum search function or the story search function?
The forum search function is just a matter of choosing and typing your search terms correctly. If the word or phrase you're looking for is in the forum you're searching, it will turn up if there are no typos.
On the other hand...
The story search function is essentially useless -- it depends on the key words authors supply when they submit their stories and you have to guess what terms might apply and how the author spelled them. It dos NOT searchthe stories themselves for words, names, or phrases.
SweetErika
Fingers Crossed
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When I'm searching the forums, I generally select the 'Search Titles Only' option and usually come up with good results quicker than searching posts, even if I have to try a few different terms.
Harold, I'm happy to finally know why I've had such miserable luck searching for stories, specifically ones I've read before. That's something I probably never would have thought to ask.
Harold, I'm happy to finally know why I've had such miserable luck searching for stories, specifically ones I've read before. That's something I probably never would have thought to ask.
Hotcappucino
Literotica Guru
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I just happened to cover this topic recently in the Story Feedback forum. I see a lot of requests for stories over there, and I get about a 50% success rate in finding them, depending upon how much information I have to go on.
As Weird Harold pointed out, the Search function is pretty useless because it only searches on the keywords that the author has provided. However, you can simply use Google as a very capable and powerful search tool. The key is to use the site: operator to restrict the search to only those pages that are a part of Literotica. For example:
site:literotica.com
If you want to search only in a particular category, include the string "index : category name" (make sure you include the surrounding quote marks, and there's one space on either side of the colon). For example, to search in the Mature category, you might use:
site:literotica.com "index : mature"
Why does this work? If you take a look at the upper left hand corner of any story, you'll see a string starting with "index : " and the name of the category. If you think the story might be in more than one category, you can use the OR operator (Google's Help page says OR must be uppercase):
site:literotica.com ("index : mature" OR "index : incest")
For searching forum messages, include the string "Literotica Discussion Board" instead of "index : category name":
site:literotica.com "Literotica Discussion Board"
If you know one or more words in the title, you can use the intitle: operator. For example, if you think Happy Birthday is in the title, you can use:
site:literotica.com intitle:happy intitle:birthday
The more unique and exact words or phrases you can include in your search, the more refined your search will be. Names of characters or places will give you the best hits (if you can remember them).
If you're finding that your search is returning too many hits, you can exclude the ones which have a certain word or phrase by putting a minus sign (hyphen) in front of it. For example, a search in the Incest category with the name Jake returns 88 hits. You remember that the story didn't have the word "sisters" in it, so you can search using:
site:literotica.com "index : incest" Jake -sisters
to cut it down to 61 hits.
Here are some sample searches:
Search for stories in the Incest category where the name Heather appears.
Search for a story with a babysitter and New York in the story
Find a story in either the Group Sex or Interracial categories where the word Japanese and girlfriend appears
Search the forums for messages containing Japanese and girlfriend
Look for a story in the Lesbian Sex category where a character is a widow
Caveats:
Google only looks for single pages that contain all of the search phrases. This can be a problem with some of the longer stories on Literotica that span several pages. For example, if you're looking for an Incest story where the main character has sex with his mom and his Aunt Jenny, Google won't return a hit on that story if the scene with mom is on page 1 and the one with the aunt is on page 3. Likewise on multi-part/multi-chapter stories.
Sometimes when you click on a link to a story, you'll get redirected to the Literotica story index instead of the actual story. Usually that's due to the story no longer being posted (possibly the author has asked Literotica to take the story down). You can sometimes see at least one cached page of the story by clicking the Cached link.
Try synonyms if you can't remember the exact word used in the story. For example, if you can't remember if the story took place on a boat, ship or yacht, you should try all three:
Search for stories where margaritas are served. The story takes place on a boat, ship or yacht.
As Weird Harold pointed out, the Search function is pretty useless because it only searches on the keywords that the author has provided. However, you can simply use Google as a very capable and powerful search tool. The key is to use the site: operator to restrict the search to only those pages that are a part of Literotica. For example:
site:literotica.com
If you want to search only in a particular category, include the string "index : category name" (make sure you include the surrounding quote marks, and there's one space on either side of the colon). For example, to search in the Mature category, you might use:
site:literotica.com "index : mature"
Why does this work? If you take a look at the upper left hand corner of any story, you'll see a string starting with "index : " and the name of the category. If you think the story might be in more than one category, you can use the OR operator (Google's Help page says OR must be uppercase):
site:literotica.com ("index : mature" OR "index : incest")
For searching forum messages, include the string "Literotica Discussion Board" instead of "index : category name":
site:literotica.com "Literotica Discussion Board"
If you know one or more words in the title, you can use the intitle: operator. For example, if you think Happy Birthday is in the title, you can use:
site:literotica.com intitle:happy intitle:birthday
The more unique and exact words or phrases you can include in your search, the more refined your search will be. Names of characters or places will give you the best hits (if you can remember them).
If you're finding that your search is returning too many hits, you can exclude the ones which have a certain word or phrase by putting a minus sign (hyphen) in front of it. For example, a search in the Incest category with the name Jake returns 88 hits. You remember that the story didn't have the word "sisters" in it, so you can search using:
site:literotica.com "index : incest" Jake -sisters
to cut it down to 61 hits.
Here are some sample searches:
Search for stories in the Incest category where the name Heather appears.
Search for a story with a babysitter and New York in the story
Find a story in either the Group Sex or Interracial categories where the word Japanese and girlfriend appears
Search the forums for messages containing Japanese and girlfriend
Look for a story in the Lesbian Sex category where a character is a widow
Caveats:
Google only looks for single pages that contain all of the search phrases. This can be a problem with some of the longer stories on Literotica that span several pages. For example, if you're looking for an Incest story where the main character has sex with his mom and his Aunt Jenny, Google won't return a hit on that story if the scene with mom is on page 1 and the one with the aunt is on page 3. Likewise on multi-part/multi-chapter stories.
Sometimes when you click on a link to a story, you'll get redirected to the Literotica story index instead of the actual story. Usually that's due to the story no longer being posted (possibly the author has asked Literotica to take the story down). You can sometimes see at least one cached page of the story by clicking the Cached link.
Try synonyms if you can't remember the exact word used in the story. For example, if you can't remember if the story took place on a boat, ship or yacht, you should try all three:
Search for stories where margaritas are served. The story takes place on a boat, ship or yacht.
Last edited:
Weird Harold
Opinionated Old Fart
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- Mar 1, 2000
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- 23,768
Hotcappucino said:
I actually suggested to Laurel that they convert to Google's search this site funtion as the Story Search Engine. That was several years ago and nothng came of it. Google has only gotten better in the meantime.
I thought about suggesting it as an alternative above, but didn't because there are some quirks that tak alot of explaining and I clearly dont know how to use Google as well as you do.
