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Experimental forum search

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peppy
19,315 posts
Here since the beginning
Topic Starter
peppy
Eventually I plan on replacing the current forum search engine with a custom one, meaning a simpler interface and more relevant results. It will also search across the wiki as well. I am trialling a new search technology and would like some general feedback on how it is working so far. You can try it out here.

Current limitations:
  1. Is not automatically updated.
  2. Only contains the last 500,000 forum posts.
  3. Doesn't have pagination yet (shows top 20 results).
  4. Results are always sorted by "most recent" (the radio buttons don't work yet).
If you want to compare results, please also try using the oogle custom search (via that box up at the top of the page), which indexes all forum posts too.

I'm interested in any feedback you have.
dkun
osu! Alumni
4,486 posts
Joined August 2009
dkun
By far, I like this new search better. It's way more simple and takes the clutter out of the results (such as the google custom).

Can't wait to see the final product. Also, what do you mean by "Is not automatically updated"?
[Luanny]
8,248 posts
Joined April 2011
[Luanny]
I find this new search more organized and clean, while the old is more precise if you want to find something in a specific board.
Still, google search seems to be more efficient (at least for now).
I'd use the new search instead of the google search when this is fully implemented but when searching for something more specific, the old search is still the best. :p
Would be fine to have some features from the old one, like searching for posts from a specific user or a specific bord implemented on the new one too.
peppy
19,315 posts
Here since the beginning
Topic Starter
peppy
Ability to filter by user and forum will be available in the final implementation. It is already present in the back-end.

That said, if google search does the job for people, I don't want to reinvent the wheel. So please tell me if you are happy with google search, and if not, what it is missing.

dkun wrote:

Also, what do you mean by "Is not automatically updated"?
The search index isn't updated with new posts, so anything posted since around the 25th Jan will not be available in results.
MillhioreF
Pro Tester
5,004 posts
Joined July 2011
MillhioreF
The two biggest flaws with google search are:
1. It hits everywhere on the site - profiles, the wiki, beatmap listings, etc.
2. It lists the same page multiple times, due to indexing links to individual posts.

This new search seems to solve both of those. However, there are times when searching other pages is helpful - I'd love for this to replace search.php, but google search should be kept too, as a way to have a wider search scope at the cost of efficiency and relevance.
peppy
19,315 posts
Here since the beginning
Topic Starter
peppy
I can possibly address your listed issues with google search. Will look into it.
Oinari-sama
osu! Alumni
3,403 posts
Joined July 2010
Oinari-sama
I found something interesting: the current forum search seems to "understands" the search query better.

I was trying to test the search ability for technical problems, which are usually hard to describe (and people may not describe it using the exact same terms). The topic I was looking for involves the user having to hit a circle twice to register as 1 hit (now resolved - the answer is enable TabletPC). The search term I used was "double hit" without the ".

Result:

The new search did not return any result at all. The Google search returned results related to "double" and "hit" from everywhere, but does not answer the query.

The current search, however, returned relevant result on page 1:

Search Result (Current System)

And a closer look at the thread reveals why the current system is able to pick up the topic while Google and the new system failed:

Thread Content

The current search engine actually searched for "twice" as relevant to "double" and this enabled it to return the result I was looking for. This ability to automatically use alternative search terms gives an advantage to the current system when it comes to hard-to-describe technical issues.

Anyway to implement this into either Google Search or the new system?
TheVileOne
osu! Alumni
8,431 posts
Joined March 2010
TheVileOne
A problem I have with google search is that it only shows results by most relevant. If I enter my name into the search, my old queue is the second result. your new search gives us an option to search the two. It's kind of hard to compare the two engines, because they are displaying results in different ways. google search is returning results by relevance and your new search is limited to recent hits.

IMO it would be nice to have a custom search engine with forum specific features. From what I've seen so far it looks good.
XPJ38
osu! Alumni
3,570 posts
Joined February 2010
XPJ38
Wait, are the Google Search Operators (like "site:", "intitle:" or "intext:") compatible with Google Custom Search Engine? In this case, no need to build a new search engine by relevance. Google Search is pretty efficient as it is, but it doesn't offer user-friendly filter options, especially to restrict the search to some parts of the website.

The new search by relevance should use GSearch and either simply give hints about how to use these operators (like "to search in a specific sub-forum, write "site:[url_of_the_subforum]" followed by your keywords", or "to search in topic titles only, write "intitle:[keyword]"") or display a page similar to search.php and use the input data to make a customised GSearch request using the operators. That's how I see it.
theowest
osu! Alumni
6,891 posts
Joined January 2009
theowest
As long as I can easily filter out forums, but that could be done with the "site:" commands. Maybe add quick-buttons for these like the bbcode formatting?
peppy
19,315 posts
Here since the beginning
Topic Starter
peppy
Is there some kind of google search keyword to make it change the ordering?
Oinari-sama
osu! Alumni
3,403 posts
Joined July 2010
Oinari-sama
I don't know if this is useful to you: https://developers.google.com/custom-search/docs/structured_search

That's for building custom search engine though. I don't know any keyword input for sorting standard google search query... :(
peppy
19,315 posts
Here since the beginning
Topic Starter
peppy
Neat, you can. Maybe google search is the answer to all our problems :).
loldcraft
106 posts
Joined June 2012
loldcraft
Is it possible to have a topic only search? E.g you only consider the topic or first post, because sometimes the search result turns up just because someone mentions it in the post, but its not the main topic of the post.
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