LW search logic -- explain?
 

I'm new to LW. I don't grasp how the search terms I enter relate to the results I get. Oh, the stuff I want is retrieved, but so is a much wider swath of results.

For a simple test example, I selected audio files and entered "bobs" under artist. That's all. I figured I would get back mostly stuff by the comedy a capella group The Bobs. I got that, and a few other titles with "bobs" in it. But I also got "bob's", "bob" and -- worst of all -- a lot of stuff with no conceivable use of the term "bob" or "bobs".

What's up? Am I missing something obvious?

I'm really expecting this to work more or less like a web search engine.... every term is looked for, at least approximately, and the hits are those documents that contain ALL of my terms (not ANY of my terms -- that's way too wide). But I get totally random stuff. And I'm only talking one term here, "bobs".

Thanks. --David.

I searched for 'bobs' on msn. Results=193639 hits.
LW's search works in the same manner except your searching a database of mostly music, programs, movies, photos, ect...not webpages and articles.
There are always going to be erroneous hits within any search, some bogus, some not. I would be glad that you are getting a large number of results back from your searches. You'll notice many people can't seem to grasp the whole search thing at all.

I wouldn't worry about this stuff, just scroll through the list and download what your looking for.

Interesting comparison...
 

... but I'm not sure it's the same thing. At least with Google, the term "bobs" or something close appears in the bogus hits. In LW that explains things that I get by a search on "bobs" like...

Bob ****** - Smoke Two Joints
Black Eyed Peas - 15 - Head Bobs
Bob's Yer Uncle.

But how do you explain these hits...

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Kid Rock - Trucker Anthem
Kim Mitchel - Patio Lanterns

where the term "bob" seems to appear in no way at all.

So what is LW's search logic? Is there a way to search without all those completely inexplicable hits (and there are a whole lot of them)? Or is it just a bug in the LW search code?

Yes, I get what I want among the false hits, but (a) it's a nuisance to sift through the "junk". (b) This gets much worse when you use two or more terms. Sometimes, the good stuff is just a tiny fraction of the hits.

--David.

I think you'll find that the term 'bob' appears somewhere. It will probably be in the audio id tag. Some people give their files (& for audio id tags) xtra details to try to attract attention to them so they show up in as many searches as possible. Adding info to movies is also possible (outside of the actual file name.)

So much info can be added to an id tag (depending on the version of tagging) that a particular file may show up under a dozen or more artists.

eg: Pink Floyd/LedZeppelin/KingCrimson/...
Hold your cursor over one of these files that show up in more than one search. The id tag info will display. You'll probably find the person has deliberately put many other artist names in there as well. I seen some mp3's with at least a dozen or more artist names. Annoying ...yes!

But don't forget you can filter your results after the search by clicking onto the artist or album, etc. Particularly for a General type search.

Nope, not in audio tags
 

Repost for DJlewis



Thanks for the reply. But I already thought of that. "bobs" is entered in the artist field of the advanced search.

Also, I hovered the mouse to check the audio tags (if that's whatcha call em) of a number of false hits, and "bob" or "bobs" was nowhere to be seen.

Is there somewhere else? Perhaps the uploader's name is Bob Something. But still, seems to me that putting the search term in the artist field should do the trick, even with other Bobs around.

Thanks. --David.