Getting Better Search results

Now search is much maligned inworld and on XstreetSL and it's true to say that search is far from perfect, indeed that's why Linden Lab are working on it. However it's also fair to say that search can only output what you put into it.

Now I'm not going to talk about searching the places tab, because that doesn't allow you to manipulate your results in the same fashion. The places tab is ordered by traffic scores, it's a quick and easy sorting mechanism. However both XstreetSL and inworld search all, from which you can select categories such as "Places" from the dropdown allow you a little manipulation to try and narrow down your results.

The information is buried away on XStreetSL, here. Nicely hidden, but there's some useful information here for both customers and merchants. Basically these advanced search techniques tell us:

1. Natural Language Search
   Enter keywords or a phrase without any operators to perform a weighted natural language search with the most relevant records displayed first.
2. Exact Phrase
   Enclose a phrase in double quotes to perform an exact match search. Example: "magic box"
3. Required Words
   
   Any word preceded by a plus sign (+) is required. Example: magic +box.
4. Unwanted Words
   Any word preceded by a minus sign (-) is unwanted. Example: magic -box

So why is any of this important? Well let's just use magic box as an example inworld. I go to search all, I decide I don't want people or wiki entries, I only want places that have a magic box so I click the dropdown and select places and tick PG, Mature and Adult. I then type magic box and hit search and I find 2830 results, including a resident called Magic Box, that's a quirk of search that it will return a resident or region name if there's an exact match.

However now I decide I've got too many results, so now I use quotation marks to search, so I enter "Magic Box". Now this will return results only for places that have Magic Box in the parcel name, description or as an item set to show in search. Parcels also need to be set to show in search places or I'll find nothing for that parcel. This is an exact phrase match, I now find I have 200 results, a tenth of my original results, which is easier to handle.

Now I might decide, I don't want to go to parcels that have sex on them, some people don't. So I could try Magic Box -sex and hit search and this removes from results any parcels with sex as a term.

Now Xstreet and inworld search are different. When you search inworld you perform an AND search, Xstreet seems to perform an OR search. So for example a search of Magic Box on Xstreet will give me all results for items that include the word Magic or the word Box. To avoid this on Xstreet you can use the plus sign, so for example if I want results for items and descriptions that contain the words magic and box, I'd type +Magic +Box this means both words need to be included to be returned in my results. Have I confused everyone yet?

Now inworld, you can perform an OR search, you just stick OR between your search words, this will then return results for parcels that contain Magic OR Box, so for example Magic OR Box. This returns a mammoth 6770 results but there may be cases where this is useful, maybe you're looking for a certain type of dress and want to check for different colours, but being a dress you're still likely to get a shed load of results. I'm sure there's a use for it.

Now this information is useful for creators too, the description of your items is crucial to search. For example you create a stunning dress and call it "The Undertaker" and that's it, you don't put much more information in. How is anyone searching for that stunning dress going to find it? There are description and name fields for items inworld, use them, it helps people to find items. People might want to search for dresses that are Mod/Copy or Mod/transfer, so by putting info such as this in your description, people can find them.

As I said at the start, search is far from ideal and Linden Lab are working on it, but with a bit of tweaking and fine tuning you can get closer to the results you want, this won't always work and there's still plenty of capacity for frustration but you also might find something new and interesting by trying some of these techniques out.

If any of this information turns out to be incorrect, tell me in the comments, I'm still celebrating Villa's stunning win this afternoon!