[wp-hackers] Page searching examples [was: 2.4 planning discussion]

Daniel Cameron dan at scatter3d.com
Wed Oct 3 21:09:37 GMT 2007


On 10/3/07, Andy Skelton <skeltoac at gmail.com> wrote:
Also, Google indexes the entire page, whereas WordPress
> only knows about the contents of the post. The output of plugins and
> widgets, such as UTW or Related Posts, can help Google determine
> relevance. WordPress has no facility for searching pages by their
> final output.

I can't imagine the links I have dynamically created in my sidebar
increasing the relevancy of a Google search centered around content
that's published on a page or post, especially since their completely
off topic. This also ties into my comment about Google searches not
respecting the site authors content since it intermixes comments (and
as you mentioned sidebar content).

On 10/3/07, Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com> wrote:
> On 10/3/07, Andy Skelton <skeltoac at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Respecting the subject of this thread, can anyone provide URLs
> > demonstrating good search on a WP site?
>
> You can check out my rather boring blog for an example of an
> integrated Google Custom Search: http://ottodestruct.com/blog/ . It'll
> show Google Ads also, if you're not blocking them.

What do you constitute as "good" search?
* If we're aiming to increase relevancy then the mechanisms Otto
proposes are great but we should also ask "relavancy relative to what
standard?". I don't think Google is a very good benchmark for
constituting "good" search as it doesn't respect authors content and
can be diluted by unrelated content.
* If the thread exists because there is a need to improve the default
search of Wordpress (as it is today) then modifying the query to
include all authored content (posts, pages, tags, meta, attach. etc.)
should suffice for everyone while letting the hackers produce plugins
for how the results are displayed, optimized or even provide personal
relevancy through basic options.

-- 
Dan Cameron


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