I'm trying to search for a string. It's a hardware identifier 10ec:8168 and should be unique to that make/model of chip. Any questions that mention is should be relevant.

But compare the site search to the API /search/advanced results:

• The site's: askubuntu.com/search?q=10ec%3A8168 returns 50 questions, and answers. All of them are related to the search string.

• But the API's: /2.1/search/advanced?q=10ec%3A8168&site=askubuntu returns all 113,237 questions on the Ubuntu site!

These two queries should be identical and they're not.
The API's q query should return results that are related to the search term.

From the /search/advanced doc:

q - a free form text parameter, will match all question properties based on an undocumented algorithm.

The API search is crippled. Please fix the q search. Ideally it should be the same as the site's search.

I'm trying to search for a string. It's a hardware identifier 10ec:8168 and should be unique to that make/model of chip. Any questions that mention is should be relevant.

But compare the site search to the API /search/advanced results:

• The site's: askubuntu.com/search?q=10ec%3A8168 returns 50 questions, and answers. All of them are related to the search string.

• But the API's: /2.1/search/advanced?q=10ec%3A8168&site=askubuntu returns all 113,237 questions on the Ubuntu site!

These two queries should be identical and they're not.
The API's q query should return results that are related to the search term.

From the /search/advanced doc:

q - a free form text parameter, will match all question properties based on an undocumented algorithm.

The API search is crippled. Please fix the q search. Ideally it should be the same as the site's search.

I'm trying to search for a string. It's a hardware identifier 10ec:8168 and should be unique to that make/model of chip. Any questions that mention is should be relevant.

But compare the site search to the API /search/advanced results:

• http://askubuntu.com/search?q=10ec%3A8168
• http://api.stackexchange.com/2.1/search/advanced?pagesize=10&order=desc&sort=relevance&site=askubuntu&q=10ec%3A8168

These should be identical and they're not.

Is there any reason the API search is so crippled and is there any timeframe for bringing parity between it and the main search?

I'm trying to search for a string. It's a hardware identifier 10ec:8168 and should be unique to that make/model of chip. Any questions that mention is should be relevant.

But compare the site search to the API /search/advanced results:

• The site's: askubuntu.com/search?q=10ec%3A8168 returns 50 questions, and answers. All of them are related to the search string.

• But the API's: /2.1/search/advanced?q=10ec%3A8168&site=askubuntu returns all 113,237 questions on the Ubuntu site!

These two queries should be identical and they're not.
The API's q query should return results that are related to the search term.

From the /search/advanced doc:

q - a free form text parameter, will match all question properties based on an undocumented algorithm.

The API search is crippled. Please fix the q search. Ideally it should be the same as the site's search.