Search Results Returning Irrelevant Topics

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gmariani
Propeller Head
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Jun 27, 2017 12:31 pm

Search Results Returning Irrelevant Topics

Post by gmariani »

Hi Everyone,
I'm a bit stumped on something that is happening in the search results for the Webhelp output I produce.
For example, I am searching for the word “refundable” (including quotes in search string) under the Search tab. The search results include many pages that do not have the word “refundable” in them. Shouldn’t my search only return pages with that exact string in them? How do I search for an exact string otherwise?
The target settings for Search have the "Include stop-words in search" and "Chunk large search database files (30000 bytes)" options selected. Under Advanced
Any ideas on what I could be missing/incorrectly set in my target?
Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.
Psider
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Posts: 811
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:32 am

Re: Search Results Returning Irrelevant Topics

Post by Psider »

Maybe you have partial word search enabled? I'm not sure if using quotes would prevent the partial matching, so check the setting and try with and without it enabled.
gmariani
Propeller Head
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Jun 27, 2017 12:31 pm

Re: Search Results Returning Irrelevant Topics

Post by gmariani »

Psider wrote:Maybe you have partial word search enabled? I'm not sure if using quotes would prevent the partial matching, so check the setting and try with and without it enabled.
Thanks for the suggestion. Tried with and without, but the same thing keeps happening.
Psider
Propellus Maximus
Posts: 811
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:32 am

Re: Search Results Returning Irrelevant Topics

Post by Psider »

Another thought would be any index entries you've defined for the topic? Or a meta description (in the topic properties)? If it's neither of those, then I'm out of ideas, sorry.
Feebeegeebee
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Location: UK

Re: Search Results Returning Irrelevant Topics

Post by Feebeegeebee »

I was also going to suggest checking the Index entries and any meta tags.
Failing that, I don't suppose there is a synonym file set up for the project that is causing this term to appear in the search results...
It would be applied to all targets by default.
Regards,
Feebeegeebee
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Using Flare 2022 on Windows 11 (64-bit)
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gmariani
Propeller Head
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Jun 27, 2017 12:31 pm

Re: Search Results Returning Irrelevant Topics

Post by gmariani »

Index entries and meta tags huh. Ok, I'll give it a look and see what happens.

Thanks everyone for the helpful tips.
Feebeegeebee
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 213
Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2012 8:38 am
Location: UK

Re: Search Results Returning Irrelevant Topics

Post by Feebeegeebee »

It's actually worth doing the following:
  • Edit > Find and Replace in Files
  • Enter refundable in the Find field.
  • Enable the Find in Source Code option.
  • And hit Find All.
That will tell you if the word is lurking somewhere within the code of any topics or files.
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Using Flare 2022 on Windows 11 (64-bit)
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gmariani
Propeller Head
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Jun 27, 2017 12:31 pm

Re: Search Results Returning Irrelevant Topics

Post by gmariani »

Feebeegeebee wrote:It's actually worth doing the following:
  • Edit > Find and Replace in Files
  • Enter refundable in the Find field.
  • Enable the Find in Source Code option.
  • And hit Find All.
That will tell you if the word is lurking somewhere within the code of any topics or files.
Thanks for the tip! That helped me find the word hidden in about 50% of the returned files. It was hiding in the annotations.
But the other results are still a mystery. I'll reach out to the Madcap support team in the meantime.
Thanks again.
gmariani
Propeller Head
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Jun 27, 2017 12:31 pm

Re: Search Results Returning Irrelevant Topics

Post by gmariani »

Just an FYI, reached out to Madcap support team and the response is:
The quotation marks do not currently have any special functionality with the MadCap Search feature. What you saw with the search results is the expected output. Flare sees the words refund, refunded, etc. as variants of refundable. Which causes those topics to pop up. If you find it necessary, I can add you to a feature request for the ability to turn off variants in search results (#115172). You will be notified when our development team releases this feature in future versions or patches.
Oh well, until then.
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