I use it quite a bit, though depending on what I want to find I may resort to using Google straight out with the "site:bitcointalk.org" directive. Normally I’d use the forum search engine for things that include a verbatim search patter or a set of words, and Google for something that’s more fuzzy.


The search engine is not brilliant, but I find it useful enough subject to:

-   Using the Advanced Search feature (not the plain search).

-   Delimiting message age (i.e. to 2, 7, 30 days, 400 days or such), otherwise the default 9999 will bring up and even display essentially old post entries. This is rather crucial in general.

-   Sort by relevance (default) may be useful sometimes, but I tend to favour using "Most recent topic first".

-   Learning well the practical difference between "match all words" and "match any words". Complementary to this, searching for patters using quotes.

-   Occasionally, delimit the boards you want to seach in (i.e. if I want to write on my local board about something, I’ll often delimit the search to my Local Board & sub-boards).