[wp-hackers] WordPress Search

[Simon Dunton - WP Sites]

Hi,

WordPress.org must be using https://www.google.co.uk/cse/

In my opinion Google custom search engines are useless. Yes you can specify which sites you want to index and tweak some settings but in my experience the results aren't as good as a normal Google search (I used it years ago so might have improved since then) and besides, do you really want Google to decide which factors are most relevant when it comes to searching on your website?

I think the best way is get your self an elasticsearch instance/cluster have all your post content automatically feed into elasticsearch to be indexed and you're totally in control.

Simon


On 31 Oct 2013, at 09:15, Haluk Karamete wrote:

> Hi Guys...
> 
> I have a question  that has two parts...
> 
> One philosophical and the other is practical... before I get into that, let
> me set the context of this question.
> 
> This question does not apply to small business or blogs.
> It applies to huge sites that have thousands of posts, perhaps over 100,000.
> 
> Search is a key feature to me, like to many other people.
> 
> I know there are a ton of great plugins out there specializing on search.
> There are great minds & work behind those plugins & I respect the work
> highly.
> 
> But when it comes to search, I don't think Google is beatable.
> 
> I think no matter how dedicated a group might be, they won't be able to
> come up with something that does better than what Google can. I'm including
> in this statement Yahoo & Bing, let alone the plugins that I've talked
> about.
> 
> There are 2 kinds of searches to me.
> 
> the kind that is super accurate ( accurate to the dot ) and this kind of
> search usually comes with no wisdom. They are handy for certain
> implementations such as searching a code base.. you can go really accurate
> with all kinds of  and's &  or's & contains etc...  like an editor's search
> 
> and there is the other kind of search..  this one comes with wisdom.
> it won't match to certain results because it *somehow* factors in some
> wisdom, and it simply avoids some results that the first type of search
> mentality I've referred above. For example, a query on "Ramadan" won't
> match "Tariq Ramadan" here. But yet a query on "5 Pillars" matches "Five
> Pillars". Well, that's google.
> 
> I'd like to hear your opinions on this. Cause I maybe seeing it wrong,
> there could be some solutions that come somewhat close to Google's way of
> doing it. But honestly, I'm almost 100% sure, that there is no better way.
> 
> Until you convince me otherwise, I would think that if you are in charge of
> a site like TechCrunch, New York Times or NPR etc, the search must be based
> on Google.
> 
> Second part of my question is if you agree with this point of view of mine,
> would you please give me a few leads as to which plugins or solutions that
> you may recommend that would integrate Google search into a WordPress site.
> 
> And BTW, I just did a search on wordpress.org just to see how Wordpress.org
> was handling the search ( cause honestly, I did not know how the codex
> handled the search aspect & I was going to compare wordpress.org's search
> results to google with site:wordpress.org - but it turned out that
> WordPress.org too adapted Google when it comes to search. :)
> 
> In that case, I could ask now if there is a recommended practice in setting
> up the custom google seathe way Wordpress.org did.
> 
> THank you
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