Name search on Advanced Search not working

[LoveandMoney]

I’m a regular name changer and have been on MN for about 18 years. I’m really disturbed by the way Advanced Search ‘Search by User Name’ is under performing. I’ve done a couple of searches using this function ‘By Threads and Posts’ and have been unable to find specific threads - it comes back saying ‘No Results - your search came back empty’. But I know they’re there! If I Google the ‘name’ plus ‘mumsnet’ the threads magically appear. Thank you Google!

I worry about this because Mumsnet is a wonderful archive but for an archive to work you need to be able to find things. I find it worrying that I’m having to rely on Google to efficiently search the Mumsnet archive rather than its own search facility.

Can I just say though, that I hugely appreciate the fact you still have threads going back to the very beginnings. I hope you’re doing all you can to preserve this? I think I’ve contacted you before and said you should get The National Archives to help you archive it for the nation - it’s such an important repository of social history!

[EmilyPlay]

Make sure you don't leave a space after the name.

[LoveandMoney]

OK I’ll try again as that’s an easy enough thing to do and not realise…

[LoveandMoney]

No. Still doesn’t work.

[Iminvisible]

For me the search facility using Filters hasn't been working for weeks. So instead I started using the Advanced Search option and that was fine at first. However now I just keeping getting the message No results when I try and use that.

[LoveandMoney]

I only ever use Advanced search. It’s not working well. If I can search in Google and I find threads by names MN says reveal no search results, what’s broken? I’m not an IT expert or website whizz but surely this gives your in-house team a clue about the bit that’s broken? As I said it’s a shame because at the ‘back-end’ the threads are all there (although I can’t be absolutely sure of this - some might be missing?) And that’s amazing 🙂