Search function weirdness

Starting yesterday I have been experiencing some weird returns on searches, specifically on telephone numbers. Before, if I entered a provider's phone number (in xxx-xxx-xxxx format), the responses were dead-on as far as I could tell, or at least I never got an invalid response. But now, I am getting multiple responses to just about every phone number I search on, and most of them (if not all) don't have that phone number anywhere in the thread.

This just started at about the same time that I was upgraded to premium access. I don't know if the two are connected though.

Edit to add: Here is an example. I searched 832-588-0069 and received these three threads as responses: http://www.eccie.net/showthread.php?t=20716&highlig ht=832-588-0069 ,

http://www.eccie.net/showthread.php?...t=832-588-0069

http://www.eccie.net/showthread.php?...t=832-588-0069

Search has been weird and inconsistent on every vBulletin board I've used.

Searching on the last 4 digits of a phone number has been the best way I've found so far. Not perfect, but it helps.

Search has been weird and inconsistent on every vBulletin board I've used.

Searching on the last 4 digits of a phone number has been the best way I've found so far. Not perfect, but it helps. Originally Posted by GneissGuy

I agree that vB search be strange, but using the tel numbers was working just fine for me until yesterday. It was easy to cut and paste them out of ads and such. Oh well, thanks for the tip on the workaround, I'll try that out.

I agree that vB search be strange, but using the tel numbers was working just fine for me until yesterday. It was easy to cut and paste them out of ads and such. Oh well, thanks for the tip on the workaround, I'll try that out. Originally Posted by Captain Correlli

That one's particularly weird here on ECCIE. It seems to work for some, but not for others and even changes from time to time on the same person. I wonder if it DOES somehow have something to do with premium access.

If all fails use google, like this.

site:eccie.net "??? ??? ????"

Just can't search in a geographical location, but will pull up site wide reviews/listings if the person travels. Sometimes it might not pull up all the results if the page hasn't been indexed by google, but it shouldn't be a problem if it's an older post.


Not sure the problem on search, maybe sometimes the threads get rearranged. Or if the posts are older, maybe the person took the phone number out of their signature or changed their signature with a new number. Then again theres the possibility that it's just...broke..

I've never found searches for phone numbers to work.

Yes I have premium access.

Can't search unless you are logged on.

Shouldn't have to resort to google for searches.

Any input from the tech staff on what else we can do to make search work? It seems to make checking on potential scammers much more difficult.

I will do some more experimentation and report back what I find.