Opened 10 years ago
Closed 10 years ago
#700 closed defect (bug) (invalid)
Improve plugin search results algorithm
| Reported by: |
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Owned by: | |
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| Milestone: | Priority: | normal | |
| Component: | Plugin Directory | Keywords: | ui-feedback ux-feedback |
| Cc: |
Description
I just did a search for "Yoast Analytics", hoping to find the "Google Analytics by Yoast" plugin, and it was 8 on the list. It seems to me that this should be the number one hit (it is via the same search term in Google) - the keyword matching is very close, and the downloads for this plugin dwarf the number of any of the other top 8, which seems to me like a good indicator that this should be a top match.
Can someone explain how the current plugin search algorithm works? It seems like there's some room for improvement in terms of factoring in downloads, ratings, etc.
In the meantime, the search really only works reliably if a) you know the exact name of the plugin, or b) there aren't many other plugins with the same keywords.
Change History (2)
#2
@
10 years ago
- Resolution set to invalid
- Status changed from new to closed
Plugin search takes many factors into account using the Sphinx search engine and relevance matching. Improving it is a constant ongoing process. More popular plugins will not always necessarily be at the top all the time, and the results can shift even day to day based on one of many factors.
If you have specific bug reports, those would be more appropriate here. At the moment, I don't think a general umbrella ticket for plugin search, or a detailed explanation of how it works being public is a particularly great idea. We get enough people trying to game the thing as is.
However, I will say that the plugin title is not the main thing that the search engine has to work with. The plugin's long description is a far better place for plugin authors to improve upon. Too many plugins just try to use it as marketing fodder, putting irrelevant links and other such things in there. Having a good description, with good human readable paragraphs and explanations of the plugin made for people to read, will get you far far better results... and the tags don't matter nearly as much as some authors like to think they do.
More data - searching "google analytics yoast" still only yields the desired plugin as result #7, despite the fact that it's a 3 our of 4 keyword match (with order) on the plugin title. Seems wonky, no? Why would those others be coming up higher?