Improving The Search Mechanism

[BuzzBox]

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[karlbenson]

Admin > Search

Are you using a Search Index? No (none) / Fulltext / Custom?
What search weights are you using?
Changing the search weights can improve relevancy of search.  Unfortuantely its different for every forum and needs somewhat of a trial and error testing to get optimum results.

Is simple search enabled?
Are you using full-word matches or allowing for partials.

[BuzzBox]

A specific question:

Our system behaves very curiously in that the first time a search is conducted, for example on the name "wallace", I receive two (and sometimes no) matching documents.  If I immediately execute that same search again, I receive the much more appropriate list of several dozen posts across many boards.

Why might this need to 'double-execute' be occurring?

[karlbenson]

Not sure.

If your not currently using a search index, you might want to use one.

For more support, you'll need to provide the answers to the questions I asked above.
By looking at your settings at Admin > Search (and the subs-tabs) and reporting back what your current settings are.