I really think the logic behind the search engine needs to be improved. Here is what I noticed:

The "best" search results are obtained if "search_indexed" is set to "indexed" and "build_search_gb" is set to "no".

However, if the results are sorted by category by turning "build_search_gb" on, the search relevancy goes way down because the results are listed by category in alphabetical order, not in order of relevancy. Wouldn't it be more logical to list the actual category sort groups in order of relevancy as well?

I also noticed that if "search_indexed" is turned to "regular" that relevancy is not even used at all, the search results are just listed in the chronological order that they were added to the directory. =P

Since I am using the indexed search anyway, my biggest concern is to get better search results sorted by category. I really would like to have it set up this way, I think it is much more organized, but that doesn't help if the search results aren't relevant. =P



Rob Bartlett
AAA Internet Publishing, Inc.
http://www.AAAInternet.com

Hi,

Your right, search results are returned by relevancy only if search_index is on. However the only affect turning on build_search_gb on and off is per page.

So if you have 500 results, the top 25 most relevant results will be shown on the first page. However, the first one may not be the most relevant, as the links will get grouped with their category.

Cheers,

Alex

--
Gossamer Threads Inc.

Ok, I understand how it works now. I just turned down my search results per page to help improve the relevancy of searches. I still think it would be nice if the search engine brought the more relevant categories to the top automatically. After all, not all searches return hundreds of results, especially for a directory that is focusing on not having a ton of garbage sites listed. ;)

Also, the first 5-10 sites are usually the ones that get noticed, so they should always be as relevant as possible to the search. If the first one or two sites are not relevant, the person may not look any further.


Rob Bartlett
AAA Internet Publishing, Inc.
http://www.AAAInternet.com