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Forum Thread

What happened to "Title Only" search option?

2,037 596 April 16, 2025 at 01:44 PM
If I do a search from the main search bar at the top of the page, there is no longer a filter option to search in the title only (versus title and first post). If I go into the forums and do a search, the option is still shown but doesn't do anything. For example, a search for "printer filament" in Hot Deals shows 75 results by default, including not just filament but also printers. If I select Title Only in the filters, it still shows 75 results even though many/most don't have "filament' in the title. I don't think I'm doing anything wrong; it's the same way I've searched since joining the site 15+ years ago.

Is this feature intentionally gone but just not hidden everywhere? If so, WHY??? Searches are SO much less helpful if I can't constrain the search terms to titles only.
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Joined Aug 2015
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SlySol
07-29-2025 at 08:32 AM.
07-29-2025 at 08:32 AM.
Quote from emceep :
Thank you for describing this so well, as well as your personal use case for it. I have shared your comment with the team so that they can look into this.
Do you know if there might be a manual workaround to do a query of past comments like that?

For instance, the first search string below will show any comments in this thread where the word "Find" is used. And the second line shows all of the comments associated with my user ID.
Code:
https://slickdeals.net/newsearch.php?showposts=1&threadid=18256873&q=Find

https://slickdeals.net/forums/userposts.php?u=5832828
I'm thinking that I might be able to manually combine the parameters in some way to search just my own comments for a particular word? Below was my quick stab at doing something similar to give an idea of what I had in mind.
Code:
https://slickdeals.net/newsearch.php?showposts=1&userid=5832828&q=Find
Obviously that wasn't successful and I've tried a few other variants, but is there maybe some kind of similar combination that might accomplish that?

(As an example of the reason, someone mentioned looking for a store that participates in the T-Mobile Tuesday promos and I know that a few months ago, I had posted a link for the store locator, so I was trying to query my own comments for the word "locator"). That one was easy enough to find by Googling elsewhere, but it seems like I find myself trying to search for similar things pretty regularly and it would be great to have a workaround if there's a way to tweak that search line.
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Last edited by SlySol July 29, 2025 at 09:09 AM.
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SlySol
07-29-2025 at 10:32 AM.
07-29-2025 at 10:32 AM.
Interesting … I think I'm getting closer to seeing a manual search term, but it looks like I'm missing something.

When testing a few things, I noticed that the following line appears to show me all of my comments containing the word "spell"

Code:
https://slickdeals.net/newsearch.php?showposts=1&searchuser=Slysol&r=1&q=spell
However, if I change the word "spell" to "locator" at the end of the query, it doesn't show my comments with the word "locator"
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Last edited by SlySol July 29, 2025 at 10:44 AM.
Joined Aug 2015
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SlySol
07-29-2025 at 10:59 AM.
07-29-2025 at 10:59 AM.
Well, I thought I had it for a minute, but there still seem to be some quirks that I'm not sure of. The following appears to work for "workaround" and a few other search terms that I tried, but it then it goes a little haywire, depending on the word searched for (like "locator"). Weird.

Code:
https://slickdeals.net/newsearch.php?showposts=1&searchuserid=5832828&r=1&q=workaround
EDIT: I also realized that my edited links above look very different in classic view than in mobile view. They almost get what's desired in classic view, but they don't really show anything useful in the mobile view. I always use classic, so I hadn't looked at the other views until now. (Just figured I'd clarify that in case anyone pulls up those queries in mobile view and wonder what the heck I'm talking about.) Smilie
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Last edited by SlySol July 29, 2025 at 05:07 PM.
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emceep | Staff
07-29-2025 at 04:02 PM.
07-29-2025 at 04:02 PM.
Quote from SlySol :
Do you know if there might be a manual workaround to do a query of past comments like that?

For instance, the first search string below will show any comments in this thread where the word "Find" is used. And the second line shows all of the comments associated with my user ID.
Code:
https://slickdeals.net/newsearch.php?showposts=1&threadid=18256873&q=Find

https://slickdeals.net/forums/userposts.php?u=5832828
I'm thinking that I might be able to manually combine the parameters in some way to search just my own comments for a particular word? Below was my quick stab at doing something similar to give an idea of what I had in mind.
Code:
https://slickdeals.net/newsearch.php?showposts=1&userid=5832828&q=Find
Obviously that wasn't successful and I've tried a few other variants, but is there maybe some kind of similar combination that might accomplish that?

(As an example of the reason, someone mentioned looking for a store that participates in the T-Mobile Tuesday promos and I know that a few months ago, I had posted a link for the store locator, so I was trying to query my own comments for the word "locator"). That one was easy enough to find by Googling elsewhere, but it seems like I find myself trying to search for similar things pretty regularly and it would be great to have a workaround if there's a way to tweak that search line.
Thanks for taking so much time to try to figure this out.
I messed with this a little this morning and I wasn't able to figure out an accurate link. I reported it to the search team and they have a hunch about what the issue could be but I'm not sure when the fix will be released.
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Joined Aug 2015
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SlySol
07-29-2025 at 04:34 PM.
07-29-2025 at 04:34 PM.
Quote from emceep :
Thanks for taking so much time to try to figure this out.
I messed with this a little this morning and I wasn't able to figure out an accurate link. I reported it to the search team and they have a hunch about what the issue could be but I'm not sure when the fix will be released.
Ok, that's cool. It's obviously nothing real important, but I kept thinking that I might be able to get it going that way if I got the syntax right. Sounds like there's a bit more to it. No biggie … thanks for taking a look!
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djohn554
08-14-2025 at 06:43 AM.
08-14-2025 at 06:43 AM.
Are title only searches ever going to get fixed?

Search for "Speaker" in title only. About half of the results do not include Speaker in the title.
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emceep | Staff
08-14-2025 at 12:15 PM.
08-14-2025 at 12:15 PM.
Quote from djohn554 :
Are title only searches ever going to get fixed?

Search for "Speaker" in title only. About half of the results do not include Speaker in the title.
The team just pushed out a fix and this search looks a lot better for me. Please try again and let us know if you are still seeing irrelevant results, or if you notice any other issues with this feature.
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Joined Jul 2010
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djohn554
08-15-2025 at 07:29 AM.
08-15-2025 at 07:29 AM.
Quote from emceep :
The team just pushed out a fix and this search looks a lot better for me. Please try again and let us know if you are still seeing irrelevant results, or if you notice any other issues with this feature.

Yeah!! It looks like it works now!!! Thanks!!!
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