by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2007/10/09 10:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2007/10/09/5372681.aspx
I admit I'm not the biggest fan of the search built into the blog.
And if I am to believe the mail I get from the Contact link, not too many of you are, either. :-)
But my options are really pretty limited....
I could put in Google search, but that does seem a bit provocative, even for me. I actually have to meet and work with the search folks from time to time!
And I could put in Live Search, but due to a side effect of the way Community Server takes care of tag nesting, you know, like if you click on Collation/Casing you get this link:
http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/tags/Collation_2F00_Casing/default.aspx
and then if inside that page you click in Int'l Programming you get this link:
http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/tags/Collation_2F00_Casing/Int_2700_l+Programming/default.aspx
and then if inside that page you click on Unicode Lame List, you get this link:
and so on. And of course all of the just about "equivalent" entries:
http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/tags/Unicode+Lame+List/Int_2700_l+Programming/Collation_2F00_Casing/default.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/tags/Unicode+Lame+List/Collation_2F00_Casing/Int_2700_l+Programming/default.aspx
You get the point, I'm sure.
All well and good, but any post that is in that last link is also in the preceding several.
And Live Search can through that nesting find the same page multiple times and not notice that it is not looking at the same page -- so even if you found what would have been the blog's equivalent of a Live Search Googlewhack then the fact that is under multiple columns will cause the same page to be found under every possible combination of the categories.
So when I searched for content on a page, it was finding the same page over and over.
Not fully cool for built-in search. :-(
Though in the end I'll blame it in Community Server's tagging setup, and probably leave the built-in search alone.
It appears that Google has a little of the same problem, though not nearly as bad.
Though if the referrer stats are to believed, all 53 of my readers who search are using Google's site search anyway, whether it is built-in or not....
This post brought to you by Ｇ (U+ff27, a.k.a. FULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G)
# Gene on 9 Oct 2007 11:24 AM:
> I actually have to meet and work with the search folks from time to time!
Well then, if they commented on you using Google, you would then have an opportunity to say "if your search WORKED, I'd use it!" and give 'em a well-deserved kick in the pants.
A little embarrassment might get the product manager to elevate the bug and put some programmer resources into it. Tons of people silently going "ZOMG, why can't MS do searching right?" rolling their eyes and clicking their Google bookmark won't.
# Michael S. Kaplan on 9 Oct 2007 11:50 AM:
That is a bit more obnoxious then I try for in my professional relationships, though I see your point....
# Skip on 9 Oct 2007 4:31 PM:
I remember when I was still at Microsoft and they removed the leading q from KB articles. I had a discussion with one PM about why customers hated the change as much as they did. The reason was that you could go to google and search on Qxxxxxx and invariably the top return would be the correct KB article, but a search on just xxxxxx would not. One of the PMs said to me that they would still be able to find them by going through the MSDN search just fine, at which point I demonstrated that finding KB articles in the MSDN search at the time was a 3 or 4 step process as opposed to only a single step with google.
# mgilchrist on 10 Oct 2007 9:38 AM:
:-D not to mention that the builtin search tool doesn't provide $ to your adsense for search account! Which it should, I've just signed up for a blog at msdn yesterday and feeling my way around in the dark. We should be able to slightly monetise our blogs on msdn specially seeing as I'm a lowly Database Specialist on the Southern Tip of Africa of all places ;-). Great Article! (another ;-)) and I'm not ranting... would just be a nice to have.
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