I've noticed that Wordpress search goes completely out of whack if you are using plugins like Popularity Contest and Related Posts...for instance, if either of those two plugins are globally listing a link for "ABC Widgets", and if you use the search field in Wordpress and search for "ABC Widgets", then every single page on the site will show up as a result. Is there any way around this? I really don't want to give up those 2 plugins...
I haven't heard of anything like this. What version of WordPress are you using, what plugins (all of them) do you have installed, and is everything up to date?