[wp-hackers] WordPress Search
David Ernst
david at ernsts.us
Thu Oct 31 13:36:35 UTC 2013
Google *does* offers this documentation page about influencing Custom
Search results: Custom
Ranking<https://developers.google.com/custom-search/docs/ranking>. But
as you say, Simon, this approach could probably never be as finely tuned as
Elasticsearch.
On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 9:29 AM, Simon Dunton - WP Sites <
simon at wpsites.co.uk> wrote:
> No, Google Custom Search is Google so probably does use page rank when
> ranking results but if you set up Google Custom Search to only list your
> website and a couple of others then the page rank algorithm probably
> doesn't come in to it much, maybe not at all, I'm not sure.
>
> I didn't even factor in page rank when I was thinking about Elasticsearch.
> With Elasticsearch you index your posts content and title, links don't come
> into it but if you think inbound links are a really good indicator of how
> important a page of content is then you could spider links and create an
> index of inbound link data like Google does but for most cases it probably
> overkill. Saying that I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to index the links
> within your own content and throw that into the mix. With a custom
> Elasticsearch setup you can index what you think is relevant and decide on
> your own importance/relevancy indicators.
>
>
> On 31 Oct 2013, at 13:17, David Ernst wrote:
>
> >>
> >> Google doesn't know what is important on your website as well as you do,
> >> Google just takes a generic approach, but you can tailor it to your
> content.
> >
> >
> > Simon, are you suggesting that Google Custom Search ignores PageRank?
> Did I
> > understand you correctly?
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 8:33 AM, Simon Dunton - WP Sites <
> > simon at wpsites.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Elasticsearch is a more complicated route but if search is important to
> >> you and you want total control then it's a good option.
> >>
> >> Elasticsearch has a number of analyzers that can be used to break up the
> >> query and index tokens
> >>
> http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/analysis-standard-analyzer.htmlsoyou could for instance pretty easily replace textual representations of
> >> numbers in the query; so "5 Pillars" could be automatically converted to
> >> "(5 OR five) Pillars".
> >>
> >> It's probably an impossible task to create your own version of Google
> but
> >> in many cases for your own data especially if it's a bit more
> specialised I
> >> think a custom Elasticsearch solution is going to be more relevant than
> >> Google could ever be. Google doesn't know what is important on your
> website
> >> as well as you do, Google just takes a generic approach, but you can
> tailor
> >> it to your content. Just for generic text i.e. if your site is a blog
> about
> >> general stuff your not going to have too much to work with but if your
> site
> >> was the WordPress codex/forums then you're going to know a whole load
> more
> >> about your sites data and structure than Google and you can use that
> edge
> >> to create a better search experience for your users than you could ever
> get
> >> from Google Custom Search.
> >>
> >> Sorry if I waffled a bit there, in a bit of a rush with work!
> >>
> >> Simon
> >>
> >> On 31 Oct 2013, at 11:18, Haluk Karamete wrote:
> >>
> >>> Thank you for your feedback Simon.
> >>>
> >>> After you pointing out that a custom Google search is not as good as
> >> Google
> >>> search, I compared these two;
> >>>
> >>> this one searches "advanced taxonomy posts" on wordpress.org web site
> >>> http://wordpress.org/search/advanced%20taxonomy%20posts
> >>>
> >>> and this one searches "advanced taxonomy posts" on google.com with a
> >> search
> >>> operator attached (site:wordpress.org)
> >>>
> >>
> https://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site%3Awordpress.org+advanced+taxonomy+posts&oq=site%3Awordpress.org+advanced+taxonomy+posts&gs_l=serp.3...68176.72806.0.76162.23.23.0.0.0.0.117.1552.22j1.23.0.cprnk%2Caddre%3Dcollection...0...1.1.30.serp..23.0.0.mY8gd8FhLtc
> >>>
> >>> Obviously results are pretty close but not identical. Both are good and
> >>> share a lot in common.
> >>> I have done some other searches but I feel like Google search results
> >> are a
> >>> little better, more mature. But it makes me think why there is a
> >>> difference?
> >>>
> >>> I guess there are some settings internally set somewhere and that
> >> modifies
> >>> the way the results are served. ( PS. I'm *not* referring here how the
> >>> search results are displayed format wise, I mean the actual order and
> the
> >>> result set... ) They are definitely not identical.
> >>>
> >>> As to the elasticsearch you refer to, from an earlier look, it looks
> >> like a
> >>> complicated route to me.
> >>>
> >>> Does the elasticsearch be able to handle "5 Pillars" and the "Tariq
> >>> Ramadan" examples I gave you in my earlier post?
> >>> Can it handle 5+5 type search? ( Not that I need this but... )
> >>> Could elasticsearch leverage Google search with all of its
> intelligence,
> >> or
> >>> is it a complete "DIY" situation here?
> >>>
> >>> I'm just curious.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 3:38 AM, Simon Dunton - WP Sites <
> >>> simon at wpsites.co.uk> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> 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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