Forum Moderators: open
a simple comparison, search for lazerzubb's "google update faq's":
[searchengineworld.com...]
[google.com...]
i understand that good site search is expensive. why not integrate google itself into WebmasterWorld? there are probably a number of ways to do that, eg. [google.com...]
that would reduce the number of new threads starting topics that have been discussed over and over many times before.
of course, brett intending to introduce a paid subscription service that includes a better search feature, among others, would be a good reason to keep (free) site search as bad as it is.
[edited by: muesli at 5:17 pm (utc) on Nov. 1, 2002]
>why not integrate google itself into WebmasterWorld
Because Google has 15k'ish pages indexed out of 50k.
When it was better in the past, it was because we didn't have nearly 300k posts back then.
Note, too, that google's free search only brings up those pages it has in the current index, so there's no real advantage in depth of coverage.
I use both Google and ATW to deep search WebmasterWorld, but I'm finding that even they don't have everything indexed -for whatever reason. Threads I know are out there aren't coming up on the serps.
We absolutely need a better on-site search, but indexing a site that runs gigabytes poses some real problems.
I very much agree... I think it's probably the weakest part of the site right now, and it probably contributes to a lot of unnecessary posting.
Some thoughts... beyond just better functionality...
Though I know this would bring about a jump in a database size, some of the current stop words are words I've tried to search, and it would be helpful to include them in searchable text (eg, page, directory).
Dates on threads would be helpful.
Subtitles on threads would be helpful. (Member use of titles is awful, and indicates to me one of the biggest problems I'm guessing a lot of members are having optimizing their sites).
Possibly, there should be a field in the posting form for keywords... perhaps that any member can add as the thread grows. Since this isn't competitive search, keywords might actually help.
I'm sure this is all a lot more easily said than done.
One thing I'd like to see that probably wouldn't be too difficult would be links back to the forums from the search page and the results pages. I've found myself trying to use the back button, and that's a mess. Usually, I just use my WebMaster World link bar shortcut to get back to the Home Page, or else I enter Search with a right-click to open a new window, and then I just close the window when I'm done.
Also, I think we should know the algo. ;)
