Eg. A search for "Mt Everest" turns up no results.

It's because the SP page has no "Mt", "Mt.", or "Mount" in the title:

http://www.summitpost.org/everest/150230

But even when Mount or Mt or Mtn is in the title, you have to use the specific one or you don't get the peak in question. For instance, if I search in Utah mountains for "Red Mountain" I don't get anything, but if I search for "Red Mtn", I do. Similarly, if I search for "Mt Powell", I get nothing, but if I search for "Mount Powell", I do. So, please add "mtn" to the list.

I leave all prefixes out and just use the main name, so to speak. E.g., type in Powell, and you get the list of Powell pages. This generally works but sometimes you get 30 or so to look through.

I've run into this issue and I think it would be fairly easy to group all three together on the back-end. Searching Mt, Mt. or Mount Powell should be able to have the same results. I could be wrong though.

When a person authors a page s/he gets to specify which keywords will be used in a search.

Try searching through google, with "Everest" and "summitpost.org" as keywords. Or...
https://www.google.com/search?q=everest ... e&ie=UTF-8

I agree with the OP. This has been on one of my pet peeves about SP for quite some time. When you type "Mount Everest" you get 0 results. I plan on getting Matt on this when the work for SP version 4 starts up. I've also had the issue with dashes in the query search mess it up too.

I get out the Urban Dictionary and can find everything, even things I never DREAMED of knowing ...

lcarreau wrote:I get out the Urban Dictionary and can find everything, even things I never DREAMED of knowing ...

+1

A member of the male gender, a Chad is a person, typically named Chad, who goes to bars to pick up chicks. He usually accomplishes this by cockblocking other guys. A Chad can be identified by his appearance which usually consists of the following: mesh trucker hat, frosted hair, greasy spiked hair, polo shirt with the collar turned up, fake tan, ringer t-shirt two sizes too small, pants two sizes too small, wifebeater in public, and a light colored button-up shirt. Chad's also have spent time in a fraternity, will dance by themselves to attract attention, and typically drink light beer.

A stereotypical douchebag asshole/jock/frat boy/ with an ego the size of the planet, who needs a swift roundhouse kick to the jaw, ala Chuck Norris style (though if actually issued by Norris, this punishment may be too extreme, even for a chad). Basically, they think they're the best at everything, love to talk shit, and are a general nuisance in every way possible.
A chad is somewhat easy to sight, as they're everywhere, but the only way to know for sure is to talk to/observe one. They typically dress in a similar manner to a "bro", though are not in fact bros. They either wear the latest fashionable clothing from big brands, or highly expensive graphic tees, most likely of the MMA (Mixed martial arts) variety. They most likely sport a tribal tattoo, or something of the like. They most commonly drive V6 Mustangs, S10 pickup trucks, or crotch rockets.

Chads can be found in large numbers at Frat houses, local hipster bars, and nu metal concerts (which are obviously real metal shows...). They often travel in groups of a few, but can be found in swarms at these establishments. Other than being cocky and talking shit, other popular pastimes of chads include, but are not limited to: beer pong, racing hondas, UFC, and blasting nu metal on their stereo because they think it makes them look like a badass.

Again, not to be confused with the bro, who may or may not share some of these characteristics, ...

A narcissistic pathological liar with sociopathic tendencies. Has a tendency to tell stories that are completely untrue to perpetuate lies about people he claims are his friends and lies about his own life to ellicit emotions, like sympathy and envy, from his friends. He is intelligent enough that it takes a while to catch on to his lies. Often, there is no point to his lies - he tells them just to tell them.

Chad, a person that thinks he is best at everything. Including sex.
He thinks he is gods gift to woman, arrogant, a prick, bi-polar, hated and loved.

Now look up 'Larry'...

A related problem is that when you do an advanced search and specify the US state "Virginia," you also get West Virginia. It's really not an advanced search; it's just a a simple word search with a few extra words as criteria.

I think it's a bad idea to modify SP's search engine solely to specifically recognize a few abbreviations of the word "Mount" as being equivalent.

Why? Well, there are lots of other words with common abbreviations. Therefore, I believe that only a generic modification of SP's search engine to recognize equivalent words would be a good thing. Unfortunately, that would be a whole lot of work.

On the other hand, I fully agree with surgent: don't look for "Mount Everest" or something similar, just look for "Everest". And if you still can't find the mountain you're looking for on SP, you can also use Google: simply add "summitpost" to whatever mountain you want. I've often used that in the past.

If the mountain does indeed exist on SP, this usually works well. The only problems I've encounterd are when the name of the mountain is not really distinctive - e.g. there are many peaks named Kreuzspitze in the Alps - or when the SummitPost page itself doesn't quite have the right name of the mountain - which happens to be the case for Red Mountain, Utah.

Generalizing, if the information on the page is incorrect or incomplete, the page can be a lot harder to find. That goes for the name as well as for the other criteria including location and coordinates. And the search engine can't do much about that.

On a different note, as MoapaPk already wrote earlier, on posting a page, apart from entering a name, it's possible to specifically enter a list of search terms. But I suppose that many people don't bother to enter anything there, in which case it's important that at the name itself is correct. Whether to use the full name, i.e. "Mount Everest" or just "Everest" is a completely different discussion. My personal preference would be to use the full name, to avoid any confusion, but I don't mind leaving out "Mount" when that's common practice for the peak at hand. And in that case I would expect to read the full name in the introduction/overview.

When one makes a page, a whole list of search terms (separated by blanks or commas) can be listed under "query name" -- including phrases in quotes. For example, one of my search terms for my"Guardian" page is "pinto valley"; searching for "pinto" will turn up a lot of pages (including mine), but a search for "pinto valley" turns up just my page.

Unfortunately, there were never clear instructions for use of the "query name," and we'll never be able to go back and re-edit all those pages.

Perhaps this seems a bit ungainly, but you can put a google search at the top of the page, with the options of "search this site" or "search the internet" -- though it does nothing more than what has been suggest above (multiple times).

Regardless to what has been suggested, I think we can all agree that the search on SP is a bit too literal. Being literal is important, but there ought to be a way to make it a little easier to find stuff. With Google when searching with "quotes" it is more literal as seen in this article. What I'm trying to say is that the power of literalness could be in the user rather than the search mechanism of SP.

And I will also agree that SP needs a strong documentation and clarity. Something I hope to also be included this Fall.