New Community Experience: Search

J. Craig Williams

Is there any pattern to the new Community's search?

I search for "Outlook"

Several pages of hits.

They are not:

1. Alphabetical by author

2. Alphabetical by summary

3. Ordered by date of initial posting

4. Ordered by date of most recent comment

5. Number of responses

6. Number of likes on initial post.

7. Related to user requesting search (my own posts are neither higher nor lower in the sort)

Is there an order?

Craig

Gwyneth C

Hi Craig,

We're currently using Google Site Search to power Community Search and don't have much control over how the results are ranked.

That said, I have what may be good news for you ... and that is that Google is retiring the service, so we'll be adopting something new moving forward. If you have search scenarios that you'd like us to consider as we research what to do next, please let me know!

Also worth thinking about are what filtering capabilities would help you better find what you need—some of what you're asking for here may be solvable with better filtering within a result set.

Cheers,

Gwyneth

J. Craig Williams

Gwyneth,

For me, consistency is likely the most important thing. If the results have a pattern, then I can adapt to them to get what I am looking for more quickly.

I'll need to see how the Community changes finally shake out to determine what I am going to need for searching within the Community.

If I think of anything less vague and more helpful than that, I'll let you know.

Craig