[AMJones]

At last, our much hinted at new search engine is ready for testing!

The new search tool uses a combination of metasearch (results from other engines) as well results from our own database, which is small but growing daily. Unlike other metasearches (including our current one) that just plop the results together, our new engine applies a unique ranking method to help ensure better results. The majority of non-relevant and non-useful sites are removed, improving the results provided from each of the engines.

The speed should also be improved from our current engine, as well it being faster than other metasearches. It's not as fast as.. yahoo, persay, however they also have thousands of servers. The speed of this tool will be improved as we expand.

I'd love any suggestions that people might have regarding the results and how to improve them. I expect to have the first version of the engine completed and released by December 15th. Here's a test page:

http://www.theideaweb.com/beta.php

Note that there are several features that have not yet been implemented; obviously the design, the ability to see more than one page of results, several additional filters, 'bolding' of the search terms, spell checking... these will all be implemented before the release.

I look forward to any suggestions or comments!

[AMJones]

Look at ME! Look at ME!

Yeah. Ok, I did just bump a thread. How evil of me.

Would love to get some feedback on this before we put things live...

[Matt]

I understand you're looking for feedback, but what kind? You're wondering how the results are? That seems like a subjective question, but I have nothing to compare them to. Maybe once implemented in an overall design I can add something, but Im at a loss as to what you're looking for.

[AMJones]

Yes, most definitely looking for feedback on how the results are.. specifically relevancy and quality of the results. Probably most specifically:

• Are the results relevant for your searches?
• Are the results of good quality? (no spam, annoying sites that appear to be relevant, but aren't once you click through)
• Are they reasonably fast? (Shouldn't be more than 2 - 3 seconds for any given search)
• Do you run into any problems doing a search?

As far as what to compare them to, they could be compared to any search engine that you currently use (including our current search tools). Even though this search utilizes results from other engines, it does a whole slew of re-ranking of the results, so the quality may be very different.

I'll ask for more feedback after the design and such are done; it's just easier to troubleshoot any problems that people find, as well as tweak the ranking of results .. if it's just the plain page.

[MystikMitch]

Going to check out and comment if i find anything.


Are the results relevant for your searches?

I tried running 2 searches for PC hardware components. later tried for freeware, music same issue.

Are the results of good quality? (no spam, annoying sites that appear to be relevant, but aren't once you click through)

It times out and does not bring anything on next try either.



Are they reasonably fast? (Shouldn't be more than 2 - 3 seconds for any given search)

Retrieve Time: 2.71488 Score Time: 0.01427 Sort Time: 0.00047 Total Time: 2.73095 Timed Out: theideaweb

Seems takes too long even on Highspeed

Do you run into any problems doing a search?

Same as above, keep me psoted if you fix anything.

Bye for now!

[AMJones]

Alright, I've been doing a great deal of tweaking on the server this is on to try to increase the speed. I believe that I've made some significant progress, but you'll have to let me know.

I've also set this up on a test server that is running nothing but the search engine. Give that a shot if the main one is still timing out.

Main Server:

http://www.theideaweb.com/beta.php

Test Server:

[Test Server URL Edited; Test Server removed]

Thanks for your input, MysticMitch!

[MystikMitch]

Sure AmJones :-) one thing I did not get an email you replied. So sorry if I have not come sooner. My isp must be doing filtering well or because I changed my isps "alias" I am tired I did run 1 search I want to say Good work it works but still a bit slow. obviously beta.

[MiamiFinsFan]

I just happened to come back to this message and testing it again from one of the School computers. My school uses T1. It is pretty good, maybe a bit slow, but not bad at all. The results are nice. I notice that Google is just a bit faster and yours has no annoying flashing advertisments. Keep up the good work!

[Matt]

Originally posted by AMJones
Alright, I've been doing a great deal of tweaking on the server this is on to try to increase the speed. I believe that I've made some significant progress, but you'll have to let me know.

I've also set this up on a test server that is running nothing but the search engine. Give that a shot if the main one is still timing out.

Main Server:

http://www.theideaweb.com/beta.php

Test Server:

[Test Server URL Edited; Test Server removed]

Thanks for your input, MysticMitch!

That search works great for me. Everything including the results look good, and everyting comes up speedy

[AMJones]

Thanks Matt, Miami! I appriciate the comments!

This is what most of the work has gone into over the last sever months. The speed factor being a problem wasn't really something that I anticipated, and it took a great deal of tweaking to get under control. Tweak, test, tweak, test, tweak. Seemed like an endless cycle.

I'm glad that it's looking better at this point. The only remaining major bug that I've found is that sometimes (seemingly randomly) it will get absolutely no results whatsoever. I'm sure that this will be worked out in good time. I'd also still like to shave about a half second off the search time. At some point in the next two months or so the search engine will be moved to it's own dual processor server, which should help considerably.

I think that it's probably ready for a more open beta-test, and I hope to move the whole thing over to SearchIdea at some point in the next week. From there, we can continue to add on features -- there's quite a few that I have in mind that aren't found commonly on other search engines. We'll also be continuing to focus on the quality of results, filtering out "spam", and adding more sites from our own human-reviewed directory to the mix.

Hopefully by Tuesday or so we'll see this engine live and ready to go on SearchIdea.

[MiamiFinsFan]

No problem. Glad to help. No rush to put it live of course hehe. However, that will be cool. Can't wait! Maybe it will become of the the very popular search portals? You never know.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I did have the trouble of getting results once when I was testing it. However, looks like you have that under control.

Keep up the good work!

[cohwill]

Very, very nice! The engine was quite fast and brought up very relevant results.

[Wired4Sound]

Yeah i'm getting no results when maybe i should.

I searched for AMJones and got nothing and a few other things, but other searches were good and pretty quick.

Are you going to put it in to a site template, or is there a version i missed?

[cohwill]

Try searching using " around AMJones. I found a lot of stuff, and not just him.

[AMJones]

After waiting some time for a few things to come together, I've gotten the engine updated once more. The latest version is definitely more reliable in terms of providing results, and is also quite a bit faster than before. Most queries seemed to be executed in under 2 seconds.

Give it a spin and let me know your thoughts!

http://www.theideaweb.com/beta.php