MVPDividing my answer in two parts...
Thanks for pointing out the "Advanced Search" options.
The "Specific Posts" setting was the missing piece in the puzzle i was looking for. It finally made the user experience of the searches more Google-ish.
The search link Search - DevCentral (f5.com) contains for example the result below. You basically can not see whats included in the topic and why its even included in the search...
If you switch the search link to Search - DevCentral (f5.com) then something magical will happen. You start to see the reason why a specific result was included in the search results and you may spot the right information directly in search result page instead of clicking on each single result link.
Question to this:
Is it possible to change the default experience in personal preferences? I cant find a setting for it...
On mobile devices the advanced search options and custom filters will not be displayed. Any plans to add it?
Everytime you re-define your search string in the search box, the selected "search filters" and the "specific Post" selection will become flushed - which makes it annoying to always reselct the filters and settings. Could the search be adjusted so that it would carry over the last settings/filters (like Google does).
Buttom line: The default settings of the search are rather confising. Dont know what others think of those settings, but for me there is lots of space for improvements. DevCentral was always a daily growing source of information where members could search the content and learn from the past. If the search is not usable or even complicated to use, then DevCentral will end up with lots of duplicated questions and content. Just my 2 cents...
Leslie_Hubertus : I know that my Profile will display all my questions and replies (but not explicitly your codeshares and articles). Anyway... you cant filter the result in the profile and I somehow dont want to click on +1k replies to find something. So at least for me, the overwhelming listing of those information is adding no benefits.
Cheers, Kai