Does any software have a good search feature?

Because from what I can tell, pretty much every search function included in a forum script, blog script or CMS seems to be kind of useless compared to just searching the site through Google or such like.

So yeah, is there a script out there with a decent search feature? Or is this something that's too hard for any developer to do that well without a ridiculous amount of investment and tons of time and effort?

 

Yea, most of the larger media companies are strictly using Google search. That is one Google product I have never used, but I suspect there may be some earnings due to its usage.

Looked at my old site Turbo-Dodge.com . I notice they are using Google search. The results page shows 4 adsense ads, so this is where you are making some extra money.

I personally run ads under the nave bar, so my search results page has ads. I wonder if the search ad results / advertisements pay better.

 

Dang, not what I wanted to hear Bob :p

Makes me want to get that implemented.

 

Google is the best site for search every thing. You need to use it for the search any thing.

 

Please remember, the limitations on search functionality aren't always in the application alone, but also in the underlying database (in most cases MySql). For instance, the standard setting for the minimum word length in a MySql fulltext search index is 4 letters, so searching for a term with 3 letters isn't possible. Most people don't realize this and run with the default, which makes the search experience a bit less user friendly.

And there are things like collation too, which if set improperly, could cause issues with searching in foreign languages (foreign to English of course).

As AWS mentioned, Elasticsearch is a very good alternative and why we're looking at it as our platform search solution. Although MongoDB has fulltext indexing much like MySql, it just doesn't come anywhere close to Elasticsearch's capabilities. This would also mean double data, possible issues with synchronization and two systems to keep up, but we think the search experience will be on par to a "Google" kind of experience and thus worth the effort, cost and complication.

Scott

 

Believe it not, might sound laughable, but in phpBB3 you can use it's own search engine that allows 3 keyword searching. MySQL 4 keyword search won't affect you from using it, even on shared hosting. I use it on my forum and 3 keyword searching is enabled and I've removed the percentage setting to down to 0 (zero) setting to not class words listed so many times as COMMON WORDS, so you can search any 3 keyword title on my forum.

Type in AND their (very common word), or SEO

 

Yeah, vB3 also had its own search index/ engine for the same reasons. It is actually "old technology", as the MySql full text indexing was finally implemented, this kind of search "application within the application" isn't necessary anymore. Well, it shouldn't be.

Scott

 

I know it's better to swicth to that, will do at some point. For now though it serves a better search purpose with the forum being quiet.

 

One of the reasons I think some use Google search I to escape the server drain searches can have.

That said, I use Sphinx on all my sites, courtesy of DigitalPoint

 

Search, as a feature, is very large and open-ended.

For small projects, leaning on MySQL's fulltext (or similar) is easy enough. Need to really customize it? You can start creating secondary index tables that aggregate other information so MySQL can index them together.

Or, when that's not available, people tend to build their own very crappy implementation. Where content contains "keyword". And then they go on... and on... and still have a horrible product.

The issues and ceiling are really endless, when you consider two competing aspects: performance and power. The speed to index content as it comes in, and the speed to search that content with complex queries. Think about things like

• query complexity:
  
  • keywords
  • word boundaries / character support / etc.
    
  • filter by other fields
    
  • grouping/aggregates
    
  • operators, negation, grouping (cond AND cond2) OR cond3 (-cond4)
    
  • weighting
    
  • positions of words
• index complexity
  
  • word length
  • positions (top more important?)
  • stop words
  • word boundaries (what is a word)
    
  • character sets (utf-8)
    
  • number of occurences
  • ...

(and I bet there are much much harder problems, this is just an example)

Add any sort of scale to that, and things become exponentially harder. And harder. And harder.

That's why applications need to use proper search applications to have any chance to be useful. Whether it's Sphinx, Elastic Search, Lucene, etc... they are built to take these things into consideration, and probably have years of developer hours behind them.

The sad reality is simple: they'll never come anywhere close to what Google can do. And our expectation, as users that use Google is simple: it should work like Google. They have spent billions of dollars refining their product, and will continue to do so. Open source software will never come close.

The real question is what is good enough, and how can we produce software that is both portable, while still being useful. It may mean offloading search to Google, or it may mean installing/buying software that does it properly. However, to actually be useful, rolling your own or even leaning on MySQL fulltext is rarely enough.

 

Yup, absolutely! Well written Adrian. These are the kinds of gems of posts, that make forums so great!

Scott

 

Is there any reason not to use Google Custom Search?

 

MyBB has a pretty good search feature.

XenForo is lacking in some areas but its okay. (I am a XF user btw)

 

How is XF search lacking, if you don't mind my asking? And why do you like MyBB search?