As you have likely noticed, the search function here is of limited usefulness in avoiding asshats.  One reason for this is that the code omits URLs from the search index.

This code has been removed, so now URLs should be searchable.  You should note that the search works by breaking up each post into words, then these words are stored in an index.  Words are split on whitespace or most symbols, with the notable exceptions of periods and hyphens.

So for example, say you found a great article with the URL http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop … atory.html.  You can take the number in it and search, like this:

and see the two previous times it was posted.

There are still limitations; the maximum word length is 20 characters, so words longer than that are not indexed.  So it's best to pick a reasonably short but unique part of the URL to search on.  For example, *undergrowth* would not turn up the URL above because the word Plans-to-clear-undergrowth-from-gay-sex-spot-branded-discriminatory.html is too long to be indexed.

Also note that the "Show results as: Posts" option now works, and is often a better way of viewing results.

Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs