Before I look into this any further, I need to know which version of Excel
you're using. I find it uncommon, at least in my experience, that you're
able to use semi-colons in your formulas instead of commas. Also, when I
tried the SE formula you used, all I got was the #Name error and if I tried
it with semi-colons, I got the formula has an error msg. Furthermore, when I
read what the SE formula is supposed to do, I don't see how you're even using
it for the intended purpose. It says it's supposed to return the number of
the first character in a string that matches the criteria e.g.,
=SEARCH("n","printer")
This function returns 4 because "n" is the fourth character in the word
"printer."
You can also search for words within other words. For example, the function
=SEARCH("base","database")