Forum Search Returns - New Updated
Submitted: Monday, Mar 21, 2011 at 20:41
ThreadID:
85152
Views:
2541
Replies:
5
FollowUps:
3
This Thread has been Archived
ExplorOz - David & Michelle
Hi everyone,
I have just uploaded the latest
Forum Search tool. It is brand new and a complete rewrite from the last one that was only just OK at best. This new search system is built on a totally new technology that I have only just started to work with.
Updates:
The start and end dates have been removed, they just got in the way and added complexity however made the old search sort of work.
The search syntax is basically the same as before with the use of double quotes to exact match a string so "Cape York"
Cairns would match exact "Cape York" and give only threads with both "Cape York" and the word Carins somewhere in the question. This is basically the same as before.
You can use Boolean searches if you understand them so "Cape York" NEAR Fridge will return all treads that have "Cape York" and "Fridge" but will rank the threads that have Fridge closer to
Cape York higher (bas example but you get the idea).
I designed the ranking algorithm myself and it basically goes like this. There is a basic search rank determined by the search system it is just a number and is based on the number of times the word appears and how close the words is to the top of the text. I take this number and multiply in a date rank based on age so newer threads will appear before older. Thus the removal of the dates. The system will rank new threads above old and from my testing seems to give good page one results on most searches.
If it all sounds confusing just type in what you want and see how the results are returned - but if you want an exact string match please use double quotes.
Good luck and let me know how it goes for you. Hopefully it will be much better than the old system.
David
PS: I am still competing the remaining search functions and
blogs and
site search are the next ones on the task list.