Alpha Build - New Search Engine!

[Brett_Tabke]

You are the first to see our new site search engine. This represents a couple months work and we are very proud of it:

[webmasterworld.com...]

Notes:
- we are not sold on the serp display yet, but we have a couple other features we want to add (thread mode vs message mode), so we are still working with templates.

Known issues:
- about 15minutes delayed on indexing new content

Anyway - we like it thus far and it is providing great results.

Thanks!

...Feedback, comments, wishes, and praise ;-) welcome and encouraged.

[topr8]

of course very welcome, looks like a good alpha to me.

time range: what about when you know something was a couple of years ago and you want to exclude more recent results?

[tangor]

Very cool! And very quick.

[brotherhood of LAN]

It's been a long time coming. excellent.

Not sure if the author field is happy with underscores, i tried my own name and it didn't match with/without them.

[hugh]

Some color or different shades of background would help make the SERPS more readable...

[wyweb]

I like it.

[brotherhood of LAN]

My mistake. I found usernames by searching in lowercase.

[Brett_Tabke]

> searching in lowercase.

bug fixed.

[caribguy]

Maybe eliminate stop words, rank by date? Otherwise, in awe!

[micklearn]

I used it quite a bit earlier today and really liked the time range option. Topr8's comment entered my mind on one search that I did - being able to isolate an absolute time-frame. I don't recall who did the study, but remember reading that a search box on every page increased search volume vs. linking to a search page -- and the wider the search box, the better. Hope that helps. Great job on the switch, really.

Best, Mick

[creative craig]

First thoughts I like it a lot - managed to find a thread I have been looking for, for a while.

[g1smd]

What's the number in brackets after the timezone that appears on some results?

[Brett_Tabke]

> What's the number in brackets after the
> timezone that appears on some results?

ranking score. Left over test number that we can use to diagnose issues.

> time range:

Very probable - on the wish list. The only issue is how do we present that so that it doesn't overly complicate the form?

[topr8]

>>The only issue is how do we present that so that it doesn't overly complicate the form?

yes that occured to me, as there are already enough options - more is going to get cluttered - i guess an option would be an 'advanced search form' like google et al all have.

[httpwebwitch]

love it!

[ken_b]

The only issue is how do we present that so that it doesn't overly complicate the form?

I'd think this audience could handle it.

[travelin cat]

I like the interface, and it's fast!

[engine]

What an excellent addition, good work!

[LifeinAsia]

Works great in my testing! I definitely like the filters.

[Robert Charlton]

Very impressive. I like the filters too. It's great to be taken to a specific post in a thread.

Looking forward to when I have more time to really play with it. Great work!

PS: I don't like the serps display either. It has the same problem, I feel, as the new home page display. Beginnings of all lines of text (exept for special indented results) should align to a common left axis. They'd be much easier to read that way.

[whoisgregg]

Excellent work! Super fast. It's good to finally be able to search private forums. :D

[skipfactor]

suhweet. thanks ww crew!

[claus]

Nice :) This is great news!

The only thing I'm a bit confused about is why there's a "Member Match", especially why this comes first in the SERPS. If you search for say "hosting", the Member Match is the whole first page, before you get to the threads.

My assumption is that you want to search the threads, not the member profiles. Maybe a tickbox could be made, like "include member profiles in search?"

Otherwise, search is seriously good news :)

[bill]

Searching the previously un-searchable private forums is really the best part of the new Search for me. That's going to make using WebmasterWorld a lot smoother for me. Good work!

I don't know if it's just me, but the images in the search form take forever to load. It's been like this since I was privy to the earlier release. Today it took 20 seconds for them all to load from my office. On my home fiber connection it takes close to 10 seconds.

[phranque]

wow.
that is all...

[tomhumf]

I find the results a bit hard to scan, I'm not sure if the two links are doing different things?

I think it would be better if you just had the link in the title. With the line under reading "username - forum name - date" with the excerpt underneath.

I agree some alternating shades, or more space between results would make them easier to scan too.

Otherwise, nice one! :)

[bouncybunny]

Hmmm. Worked for a bit, now all my searches come up with "Member Match" results...

The only way I can get the SE to work for Forum topics is to enter something in the 'Author' box also.

This is Safari and Firefox on a Mac being used.

[Lexur]

a) I can't find the Postrank, so I can't say I made a post with PR2 or PR7
b) it will have a monthly AdvancedSearch dance?

Now seriously, thread icons break the alignment. I think french style could increase readability.

Fast and simple. Wasn't Google this way ten years ago?

Good work.

[explorador]

Nice, already using it and I like it.

[poster_boy]

I want to like it... but the results are super hard to read.