Sorting Search Results

Stiofan.

I completely understand. 🙂 Having written something similar for another platform, I recognize that it is difficult to appease 100% of your customer base, 100% of the time. The business proposition is one that must be carefully weighed.

Having reviewed the geodir_posts_orderby() code in the listing_filters.php, Well done! The combination of order by cases along with the weighting mechanism is good stuff. If there is business concern about adding customization of the search weighting and ordering of results in the admin UI, perhaps there is a middle ground that would assist custom development.

I see the filter available towards the end of the function. That helps! I still like the idea of adding an order by option in the admin ui for “Relevance” as this facilitates ordering of results in the end user UI to get back to relevance as needed, passing the sort_by=az.

i.e. for one of my directories, the following search URL params yield pretty good results and moves the higher rated listings to the front which is what our users actually expect….to a point

?geodir_search=1&stype=gd_place&s=cisco&sort_by=high_rating

Another developer friendly step or possible feature in the admin UI is to allow the override or setting of the individual weights used as part of the count($keywords) orderby completion. While those weights are hard coded based on the best feedback your team has received from customers, the additional option to deviate from those “Geodirectory best practices” allows those who are adventurous to tweak to the best fit for their customers who are ultimately the users of our directories built on GeoDirectory.

Just some thoughts and I REALLY appreciate your willingness to continue to dialogue on this topic. I can easily see how the various threads in the past where folks simply complain about search can get tiring to answer. My hope is that this thread might provide a good business proposition from the viewpoint of both a business owner, developer and a position of search algorithm layman understanding.

Cheers.

Thanks Stiofan.

LOL! I can understand not wanting a customer to “break” search. 🙂 Perhaps having any option to RESET weights to the default gives some assurance of getting a customer back to “working”.

Here’s another business opportunity perhaps. Maybe the search weighting UI is only available as part of the Advanced Search Plugin. Another reason for folks to buy it. Leave weighting and orderby hooks for those of us doing custom dev.

Perhaps a UI item that can easily be unchecked to get a customer back to ground zero: Add a checkbox that enables the sorting options to override the relevance default. If the box is checked, the forced relevance is not enabled in the order by, leaving the sorting options in search admin UI as they are. If unchecked, the standard GeoDirectory relevance override for search results remains and the weights are tweaked as needed. Or the other way around on the checkbox if better UX.

Thanks for listening Stiofan. Appreciative of the dialogue.

Cheers!