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Would be good if search returned only the hits you asked for
HI there! I searched for "After You'd Gone", and was delivered a list of all editions of "After You'd Gone" by Maggie O'Farrell *and* all editions of "After You've Gone" by Joan Lingard. Okay, I should have looked more carefully, but it *never* occurred to me that asking for "After YOU'D Gone" would turn up "After YOU'VE Gone" -- and I didn't realize the situation until a copy of the wrong book turned up. Hey, it's probably a great book, too -- this isn't the end of the world -- but why would a search with "You'd" give me results for "You've"?? Would be really good to make it such that the search returns the results asked for, without sending unrelated, but similar, titles. I know -- like you have time for this!! Sorry, but maybe you could add it to the list of nice features that could happen sometime, maybe.
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Mary Ellen
10 years ago
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I Think this is because of how the search is adjusted. Basically, if you enter more than one word, a search engine can either do: Boolean AND search: all words in the search box must appear in the hits Boolean OR search: any of the words in the search box can appear in the hits Obviously, the OR search gives much more hits. The problem is when a) the search engine doesn't explain how it's programmed b) the search engine doesn't accept explicit Boolean terms (e.g. if you put a phrase in citation marks "like this" it should return only hits with "like this" in them, not do a standard OR search; if you enter like AND this it should do an AND search, etc. But badly programmed search engines do not accept standard Boolean operators. Explaining the way the standard search is done and what terms to use for advanced searches is what a well programmed engine has on their help or advanced page.
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Thanks for your reply! I take your point, but I don't believe the situation has to do with Boolean operators, either explicit ones or ones hidden from the user but coded into the search function. Whether you use an AND or an OR operator on my string of three search terms, AFTER YOU'D GONE, you can't end up with the string AFTER YOU'VE GONE. That is, you cannot generate AFTER YOU'VE GONE by using AND or OR operators on the string AFTER YOU'D GONE; the search function is (generously, I'm sure, but not appropriately) giving me hits on a different search term from the one I entered! It may be trying to (un)helpfully give me a broader search than the one I requested, in essence returning the wrong results and calling it a feature rather than a bug... I'd just like the search to send me hits on the term I searched for. Seems straightforward; I'm not asking for the world. Thanks!
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SORRY!! Oh, I'm an IDIOT. I said I took your point, but I wasn't really thinking -- duh. BIG apologies If the search function at BookMooch is an OR search all the time, I've never noticed it! I will take more care in the future. I wish it would just accept my search terms, and search on them. Sigh. VERY sorry to give you that dough-headed response above. (Slinks away and shuts up.)
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NO--wait a minute. That can't be right, either. If the basic search is coded as an OR search, then handing it the string AFTER YOU'D GONE should return every book in the database with AFTER in the title, and every book with GONE in the title, and every book with YOU'D in the title. That is clearly not what happened!
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I didn't try this search myself, so I didn't know if it was an automatic OR search. It could be an automatic spell-change (similar to whtat Google and others offer) searching for both versions of commonly mis-spelled or confused words. > I'd just like the search to send me hits on the term I searched for. Seems straightforward; I'm not asking for the world. Thanks! Yes, that would be nice. Or if at least the programmers would chip and explain things definitly instead of leaving us guessing...
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