[wp-meta] [Making WordPress.org] #1692: Plugin search quality improvements

[Making WordPress.org]

#1692: Plugin search quality improvements
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 Reporter:  tellyworth                           |       Owner:  tellyworth
     Type:  enhancement                          |      Status:  assigned
 Priority:  normal                               |   Milestone:  Plugin
Component:  Plugin Directory                     |  Directory v3.0
 Keywords:  dev-feedback needs-docs 2nd-opinion  |  Resolution:
  needs-testing                                  |
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Comment (by gibrown):

 >I think it has improved, however, the old search is still better because
 I see 30 results that are responsive image sliders on the first page. The
 new search shows only 14 on the first page and some of those aren't image
 sliders (testimonials, instagram, logos, thumbnails). Why don't I see some
 of those 30 instead? And page 2 should have the rest of those 30, but
 again it has what I would call sketchy matches.

 @joyously all of the results on the new search are sliders that are
 responsive. Some of the lower down ones happen to also be for different
 use cases (logos, testimonials, instagram). The top 6 results are all very
 recently updated and collectively are installed on over 180k sites. I
 actually think the results are quite good. It points a user that is
 looking for a responsive slider towards plugins that are already
 successfully supporting many users and getting good reviews. The old
 search points the user at results that are quite obviously less well
 supported (haven't been updated in years, not tested on recent versions,
 bad reviews).

 I don't agree that 30 results is better than 14. Based on lots of data
 most users don't look beyond the first few results. Here's a quick link I
 found that also mentions some other studies: https://moz.com/blog/google-
 organic-click-through-rates-in-2014

 Less than 5% of users go to the second page of results. Personally I'm
 trying to focus a lot on the top 4 results when evaluating these results.

 The only case for "responsive slider" that isn't showing up that I don't
 understand is this plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins-wp/slider-image/

 It has 100k installs and lots of updates. Going to look into this case a
 bit more.

 Thanks for the continued testing. It's really helpful to me to look at
 individual cases and examine them.

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Ticket URL: <https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1692#comment:131>
Making WordPress.org <https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/>
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