Search Engine

[SandervG 1,521]

It has begun!

We've made some improvements to the search engine, and we continue to do so in the upcoming period.

There are already some noticeable improvements where if you, for example, look for 'Tool changer' you find @Foehnsturm's topic on the 4th place. The other hits have a link to the thread so they are relevant as well.

If you have a clogged nozzle, your first hit is 'how to disassemble a clogged UM2 nozzle' and some other related hits.

But of course, we're not there yet.

I would like to ask you to start use our search feature more in your workflow (I know a lot of people use google (I'm guilty too!)). And when you do, and you don't find what you need could you post here what keywords you used and what you were expecting to find? It will help us to improve even more.

I'll do the same, as our dev will monitor this thread and soak up all the feedback!

And when you use the search, and you do find what you were looking for let us know as well

It will tell us what areas do work well and that could also help fixing other things.

Thank you!

----

Edit.

Added criteria:

- Only show relevant topics. Or 'no results'.

- Look into vbulletin for advanced search options.

- Rank on amount of views / popularity.

- When there is a hit on page 5, go to page 5 instead of page 1.

Edited February 19, 2016 by Guest

[LePaul 321]

It's a good start. Thanks!

[frederiekpascal 193]

How is this search functionality configured? Do you search in the body of a thread or only in the subject?

I search for "Frederiek" as an example and the first few results are correct. But, as you can see, I still see a lot of irrelevant results...

Also, please a tool for filtering the search results. Now I have no clue how the results are sorted.

And I got 255 results in the support section for "Frederiek".

It's improved a bit yes, but I'll stick to Google for now.

Keep us posted!

[Dim3nsioneer 557]

If you search 'Olsson Block' you still don't get the original post from Anders Olsson on the first result page. If you search with Google including 'site:ultimaker.com' it's the top result.

[yellowshark 153]

Never having used the search I gave it a try. I entered Carbon Fibre Filament. The first two items on the list were relevant. I checked 5 or 6 more on the page, which were not. I suspect the following 517 pages were also irrelevant.

[SandervG 1,521]

@frederiekpascal, it searches in both body and title / subject.

The order in which keywords are entered is also of influence, and that is something we want to improve.

Currently it gives you too many hits, which needs to improved too, but it also separates hits from site / forum / people etc.

Would you like an option like 'User:Frederiekpascal' and what would you expect to see?

All of his/your posts? Or other tags?

About filtering, what would you like to know?

On what keywords you have a hit?

Do you want to rank them on 'latest reply' or most relevant? And how would you define relevant? (We can create a configuration as well, but by asking you there is a higher chance we end up on the same page).

@Dim3nsioneer; so you want the subject to be heavier?

The original post has 94000 views, where our top hit has only 400.

You want it ranked on the amount of views i.e. popularity?

@Yellowshark, thanks for putting in your 2 cents.

I see it had also quite some hits on 'support'. Did those results make sense to you?

Were you satisfied is it only showed the 2 results on forum?

Thanks guys!

[frederiekpascal 193]

@frederiekpascal, it searches in both body and title / subject.

The order in which keywords are entered is also of influence, and that is something we want to improve.

Currently it gives you too many hits, which needs to improved too, but it also separates hits from site / forum / people etc.

Would you like an option like 'User:Frederiekpascal' and what would you expect to see?

All of his/your posts? Or other tags?

About filtering, what would you like to know?

On what keywords you have a hit?

Do you want to rank them on 'latest reply' or most relevant? And how would you define relevant? (We can create a configuration as well, but by asking you there is a higher chance we end up on the same page).

@Dim3nsioneer; so you want the subject to be heavier?

The original post has 94000 views, where our top hit has only 400.

You want it ranked on the amount of views i.e. popularity?

@Yellowshark, thanks for putting in your 2 cents.

I see it had also quite some hits on 'support'. Did those results make sense to you?

Were you satisfied is it only showed the 2 results on forum?

Thanks guys!

 

Vbulletin has some nifty search functionalities. Not easy to clone them all in this forum but at least a few filters to sort the results are more than welcome.

[Titus 170]

it is kinda working now. Tumbler:

https://ultimaker.com/search?keyword=tumbler&category=0&type=2

It gives a few topics yes, then the usual crap like

https://ultimaker.com/en/community/10260-ultimaker-forum

That REALLY shouldnt show up anymore. Any topic that does not have the keyword is useless. Limiting to 3 results is better, leading to people using different keywords, rather than get lost and frustrated in the unrelated topics.

BUT I am still missing out on the important bronzefill topic(not 100% sure tumbler was mentioned there, but I thought so)

Edited February 19, 2016 by Guest

[yellowshark 153]

Hi @SandervG, well I always read the material threads and I am surprised it only displayed two, which were at the top of the list, which was good. Of course I assume that the search engine would not find posts with spelling mistakes such as "carbon fiber". Sorry but I do not understand ... 'some hits in "support" ' in this context.

[SandervG 1,521]

Hi Titus,

Agreed, the Japanese topics should not be listed.

Have you tried finding the bronzefill topic? Did you use 'bronzefill'?

[SandervG 1,521]

@yellowshark

With hits in support I mean the categories.

Like: Site | Forum | 3D Prints | People | Support (225)

[avogra 68]

I am also in for some filter options. Most important in my opinion:

 

• search in topic subject <-> search full text
  
• only show hits containing all keywords
  
• only from subforum (multiple choice)
  
• allow quotation marks to enforce a match of exactly the search text
  
• only show threads with (at least xxx) responses
  
• only show answered questions ( you might want to expand that to any tags)
  
• only show hits in "best answer"s
  

 

of course something like the vbulletin mask shown by frederiek would be awesome.

And some useful sorting:

sort by...

 

• relevance ( i guess most search engines have some internal match rating)
  
• date of last post in thread
  
• number of answers
  
• date of initial post
  
• most liked posts
  
• number of views
  
• maybe average points of users who have responded ? (-> to find experts' threads ?)
  

 

just a few options that come to mind.

[yellowshark 153]

 

@SandervG Oh I see now! Yes the number does surprise me. What is good though is that the search engine, for me, excluded the 2nd item on your list , because it was about a bed not about filament

[frederiekpascal 193]

I am also in for some filter options. Most important in my opinion:

 

• search in topic subject <-> search full text

• only show hits containing all keywords

• only from subforum (multiple choice)

• allow quotation marks to enforce a match of exactly the search text

• only show threads with (at least xxx) responses

• only show answered questions ( you might want to expand that to any tags)

• only show hits in "best answer"s

 

of course something like the vbulletin mask shown by frederiek would be awesome.

And some useful sorting:

sort by...

 

• relevance ( i guess most search engines have some internal match rating)

• date of last post in thread

• number of answers

• date of initial post

• most liked posts

• number of views

• maybe average points of users who have responded ? (-> to find experts' threads ?)

 

just a few options that come to mind.

 

exactly! great suggestions imo!

[SandervG 1,521]

I am also in for some filter options. Most important in my opinion:

 

[*]only show hits containing all keywords

 

Do we? IMO if we would show what keywords it didn't hit it could still be relevant.

But have all keywords rank higher.

[LePaul 321]

Is there a way to pipe in a Google search into your forum software?

It would be nice if Boolean searches (and, or, etc) are used to filter by the search keywords. I know in my reading of carbon fiber filament recently, I got many hits but not many entirely relevant. The same goes for Ultimaker Original searches, etc. You wind up with a lot of UM2 hits before UMO ones.

[avogra 68]

 

I am also in for some filter options. Most important in my opinion:

 

• only show hits containing all keywords

 

 

Do we? IMO if we would show what keywords it didn't hit it could still be relevant.

But have all keywords rank higher.

 

This doesn't work anymore as soon as you want to sort by anything else than relevance.

Lets say, I want to find the oldest threads about the subject "infill lines not touching". So I set sorting to "oldest initial post first". Now assume there are 30 threads from 2014 about "perimeter lines not touching", 3 threads from early 2015 and 10 threads from later in 2015 about "infill lines not touching". Clearly I am after those 3 from early 2015.

Now what will the search enginge do? I suppose, as sorting is set to "oldest initial post first" it has no other chance than to present first the 30 from 2014, then 3 from early 2015 then 10 from later 2015. I would be much happier with only 13 results and I know, these are all the threads.

That is what at least I am habituated from other forums and search engines. They give me the ability to search very explicitly and will present me explicit results.

If I don't want that, I leave the filter untouched and I will get those 30 results too.

/edit: in the quote, added the closing list tag

Edited February 19, 2016 by Guest

[Dim3nsioneer 557]

@Dim3nsioneer; so you want the subject to be heavier?

The original post has 94000 views, where our top hit has only 400.

You want it ranked on the amount of views i.e. popularity?

 

Well, the guys at Mountain View have some experience with their search algorithms... it occurs as natural to me that finding the subject in the title should lead to a heavier weighting. The number of views might be an indicator but could also lead to a dead end... I still don't get why you try to write your own search algorithm instead of using Google...

Edited February 19, 2016 by Guest

[ultiarjan 1,223]

I still don't get why you try to write your own search algorithm instead of using Google...

 

Indeed... seems in the same league as trying to design a stepper motor, SD card or LCD display...  others will always be better at it...  

Is it just to costly to implement Google? royalties? how does it work? or you'r just control freaks?

Edited February 19, 2016 by Guest

[Labern 774]

Filters can be important when looking for a post but you cant remember the actual words used. You can narrow down the results by only searching in one forum topic and time range etc

[SandervG 1,521]

@dim3nsioneer, @LePaul, @UltiArjan,

We are not building our own search engine from scratch.

We have a popular search engine installed called elasticsearch which is also used by big companies like wikimedia, github, stack exchange. But it needs to be configured, and the configuration can be optimized. Google search is an option too, but just like elasticsearch that needs to be optimized too.

By talking to you we are trying to do the best configuration for our forum.

[frederiekpascal 193]

 

I still don't get why you try to write your own search algorithm instead of using Google...

 

Indeed... seems in the same league as trying to design a stepper motor, SD card or LCD display...  others will always be better at it...  

Is it just to costly to implement Google? royalties? how does it work? or you'r just control freaks?

 

The implementation of Google search on a website like Ultimaker.com costs money. You pay for each search query submitted from your site.

https://www.google.com/work/search/products/gss.html#pricing_content

Finetuning the current search engine of this site and adding useful filters should be enough imo...

[peetersm 124]

Similar confusing experience, seriously wondering why you think there's been an improvement worthy of asking for feedback on.

1. Searching on my username. "peetersm" the top 6 hits do not contain the string "peetersm" at all and 13255 hits are returned, I stopped checking after the top 6 did not contain that text.

2. I posted several topics with "bug" in the title, so I seached on "bug peetersm" gives me 13254 hits, (i have a funny feeling that there are 13254 posts or that is the limit on results returned) anyway, in the top 3 pages (75hits) nothing.

3. Search on "retraction blobs" 13254 hits (hey there's the number again). a little better since I'm now seeing my key words in some of the hits. 1st hit = 1 instance of "retraction blobs" in the body of the opening post. 2nd hit = ZERO instance of "retraction blobs" in entire thread 2 pages. 3nd hit = ZERO instance of "retraction blobs". 4th hit = 2 instance of "retraction blobs" in the body of the opening post. 5th hit = 4 instance of "retraction blobs" , 1 in the TITLE, 2 in the body of the opening post, 1 more in a response.

do you really need us to tell you these things? can't your developers realize that having the key words appear AT ALL or next to each other OR in the title is kinda a clue that that thread might be what the person is looking for?

[SandervG 1,521]

Hi Peetersm,

Thank you for your input.

It got better, I didn't say it worked flawless. There is still plenty of room for improvement like you pointed out. We wanted to give you guys the opportunity to be part of the optimalization while we were working on it as well. Hence this thread. The obvious things are also on our radar.

We have also received some valuable input in terms of desired filters and options, so thank you for that!

[peetersm 124]

Hi Peetersm,

Thank you for your input.

It got better, I didn't say it worked flawless.

 

LOL, yes I agree, it certainly is better that I documented 9 months ago in this post and video here.

Apparently getting the most basic features of a search (key words actually appear in the results) is harder that we would guess, since this is not something you've been able to accomplish yet. Possibly Google has spoiled us all?

Thanks for the kind and level headed reply as always! :-)