Not planned Improve Search Algorithms

[Adam Howard]

I can't tell you how many times I've used the search here (or else where), turned up nothing, zip, zero, na-da, and yet someone would post a link telling me that it is a double post.

And I'm not alone.

I actually have to remind myself to search Google to turn up what I am looking for, because I don't find anything here.

 

[RobParker]

Are you sure that the issue isn't because it automatically ticks "search this forum only"? I've had that problem before in not realising that the search has different defaults depending on where it's used.

 

[Adam Howard]

Are you sure that the issue isn't because it automatically ticks "search this forum only"? I've had that problem before in not realising that the search has different defaults depending on where it's used.

I'm sure, but for starters.... That box should be un-checked.

 

[RobParker]

Are you saying it is unticked by default for you? It's always ticked for me by default and I need to untick it to do a full search.

 

[craigiri]

mysql search is somewhat deficient by default. Therefore, unless someone writes a search module from scratch we are not going to get any type of fuzzy logic searching like we are used to on goog.

I think you can use * wildcards with searching to help bring results....

I asked about this a couple months ago and was told the same - a limitation of mysql.

http://harrison-fisk.blogspot.com/2010/01/state-of-mysql-search.html

 

[RobParker]

Here uses ES with stemming doesn't it rather than just a MySQL search?

 

[craigiri]

Here uses ES with stemming doesn't it rather than just a MySQL search?

Yes, I use the same. It still does not contain the intelligence to do things like google...example.

I search for timber line
it does not, like google, return the results for timberline and ask if that is what I meant. That takes a lot more AI.

I think that is where a lot of the real intelligence lies - being able to tell, based on the database (and site, threads) what a person MIGHT mean by a query.

I'm not certain what the answer is - but even big sites like eBay have very poor search compared to google...so it must not be an easy thing to implement.

I think most of this is a matter of us being spoiled by google! I tried Bing yesterday just to see if they had the same type of system and found that they did very poorly on finding particular parts of my site...much worse than google.

It might be that the best solution for those who really need this...is to use google custom site search.

 

[digitalpoint]

but even big sites like eBay have very poor search compared to google...so it must not be an easy thing to implement.

Yep... exactly this. Google is very good because they understand what a page (and your query) is actually *about*... beyond just the words.

And programmatically understanding how the same words put together in a different way changes the meaning... that's really not that easy. And why Google is so successul.

 

[MagnusB]

The best way to get good search results is to use Google custom search engines, even with limited access it is still better than the built in search for most scripts. I would love to see someone post a guide or a good implementation of Google CSE for Xenforo. I had it sorta running before, but it was a nightmare to style and I never managed to get it working with the quick search for phpBB.

 

[CurveGotti]

I can't tell you how many times I've used the search here (or else where), turned up nothing, zip, zero, na-da, and yet someone would post a link telling me that it is a double post.

And I'm not alone.

I actually have to remind myself to search Google to turn up what I am looking for, because I don't find anything here.

I have the same problem from time to time, so I just use the old google site:xenforo.com "search terms" trick as well.