Bugs
Saerch oddity
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Original Post
I've been doing a lot of searching lately because I've stopped being relevant.
So tonight I did my normal search for crochet hat to see where I am. Every item that comes up in that search for pages and pages has the exact phrase "crochet hat" in its titles and tags. But as soon as I say "crochet hat -baby -pattern" most of the items on the first page DON'T have the phrase crochet hat in the titles or tags. Why is the search result completely different? Shouldn't it be the same result just minus listings that have baby or pattern. I'm just trying to understand this.
www.etsy.com/search/handmade?search_submit=&q=crochet+hat+-baby+-pa...
Posted at 9:28 pm Feb 22, 2012 EST
Responses
You would think they would show these first then split the words as less relevant. Is that what you mean?
www.etsy.com/search/handmade?search_submit=&q=%22crochet+hat%22+-ba...
Posted at 9:46 pm Feb 22, 2012 EST
I am seeing it too - VERY odd. In both versions of the search I have in my different browsers. But in this account there are more with the correct titles.
Posted at 9:53 pm Feb 22, 2012 EST
I'm not sure I understand your question, but your results seem correct since you put "crochet hat" in quotes. i didn't. Your results are showing the same items as a crochet hat search but minus anything with baby or pattern. My results are showing completely different listings and listings that don't necessarily have the phrase crochet hat in the title or tags.
Posted at 9:55 pm Feb 22, 2012 EST
Hey,
Let's try and get to the bottom of this. When you exclude terms for a search using the -XXX operand, items that have XXX in their tags should be excluded from search results.
Can you link here any items tagged with in the search you initially linked that are tagged with baby or pattern? I'm not seeing any, but if there are we definitely want to investigate.
You can find information on how search operators operate on Etsy here:
www.etsy.com/help/article/80
Posted at 5:04 pm Feb 23, 2012 EST
the problem (as I understand it) is not that it is including things that should be excluded.
The problem is that it no longer seems to be sorted by relevancy, as the items on the first page are completely different than when you just search "crochet hat" - & the missing items are not all baby or pattern items. Many items on the first page do not have the exact match phrase "crochet hat" in their title, or in the tags - it's more like the jumbled recency search, except that it isn't entirely by recency either.
So the usual relevancy rules are completely out the window once you exclude terms. That seems odd, as there would be no reason to have relevancy rules if they weren't useful. Why would they not apply once you exclude a term?
Posted at 5:57 pm Feb 23, 2012 EST
sorry, I never came back but Cindy explained it right. And it would still be great if Admin could explain this.
It would stand to reason that doing a search minus something would give you the same results just minus those things, but that's not what happens. the results are completely different, and not really relevant by the same standards.
Posted at 10:16 am Feb 24, 2012 EST