I want to talk about search results, what we're doing to improve them, and, most importantly, how you can help.
Next week, we're releasing and update that will, we hope, improve the quality of search results. Some of the changes we're making include:
- Changing which documents match a given search query.
- Changing how much weight is given to each match based on where the word is.
- Changing how we rank the documents that do match.
These changes appear to result in subtle improvements in results, in the tests we've done.
So, how can you help?
If you search for something and don't get the results you expect, please comment on this thread with a few bits of information:
- The query you used, exactly as you typed it.
- The page you were on when you typed in the query.
- The operating system and browser version you were using.
- The results you expected, but didn't see.
- Any results that were further down the list than you expected.
Improving search result quality is an ongoing, iterative process, that involves both content and algorithmic changes. If we have specific examples of searches that don't work as expected, it gives us good test cases for understanding how we can improve.
Thanks!
