Totally lost... The new search results?

That's a huge issue though, absolutely massive issue really. The default should be for speech marks to be used when you're searching, that way someone searching for "low prim furniture", should find "low prim furniture". Otherwise, as well as finding low prim furniture they'll also return results such as:

Low rise jeans, prim skirts, antique furniture, because low, prim and furniture all exist in that result.

It would be useful, from this angle, if we could see what search words brought someone to our parcels. If someone is coming to my parcels for items that don't exist there, it's a waste of their time.

Do a search for an avatar, if they have a profile page that has a list of their picks, and a link to read their full profile, then their picks will count.

If they only have the standard profile listed, then their picks won't count.

Well, (I haven't tested this) if the google appliance works the same as the public google service, "low prim furniture" should not return any results not containing that exact phrase. Drop the quotes from the phrase, and then sure, you would expect to see relevance ranked results for each word in the phrase. For me, it's more intuitive this way.. if I want an exact phrase match, it just makes sense to wrap the phrase in quotes. Say you're shopping for hair, shoes and screwdrivers, and you want to find a place that sells all three.. defaulting to exact matching would cause a problem..

Me: "hair shoes screwdrivers"
Index: "shoes screwdrivers hair"

See the problem?

This is why my initial complaint about Search is that it was developed not to help Searchers, but to be secretive (to prevent gaming) and appease merchants.

Everything that Linden Lab has done to document Search has been geared toward merchants improving rankings. None of it toward helping searchers find meaningful Search results.

There is a "New Search FAQ" in the Knowledge Base. It is under the category of "Business Owners." Of course, most of the information is about how to improve search rankings. (There is brief mention that the search engine recognizes bolean operators and quotation marks.)

There is a blog post (http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/11/13/new-search-with-todays-release-candidate/#more-1376)- written when the new Search was still only in the Release Candidate- which has a section on "Using the New Search." It states:

"The new search is easy to use - simply type into the search box and click the “Search” button. The results will quickly be displayed, along with any related classified ads along the right-hand side. You are able to limit your search by category (Classifieds, Events, Groups, People, Places and Wiki) or search all of the categories at the same time."

There just was not a lot of thought put into the question of how does a searcher find what the searcher wants, it seems.

If there were tips on how the searcher could use the search, and I could find the tips and read them and have success with them, then I would change my mind and be happy with the new Search.

Well, (I haven't tested this) if the google appliance works the same as the public google service, "low prim furniture" should not return any results not containing that exact phrase. Drop the quotes from the phrase, and then sure, you would expect to see relevance ranked results for each word in the phrase.

What do you mean, a link to read their full profile?

I have filled out the first page, and the other pages of my profile. Which pages are you talking about?

What are you talking about that should not be left out?

coco

If you can't log on from work (as is my situation), go to http://taterunino.net/searchform.html and try the search yourself. It does not return anything other than entries with the words "low prim furniture" in that order.

If you do a search, via search all, for Cocoanut Koala the top two results have a little icon next to them, the top one is:

Resident profile: Cocoanut Koala

That's the standard old profile. If I click on that I get the normal profile info and I can IM you and offer teleport yadda yadda yadda.

The second one is:

Cocoanut Koala

If I click on that I get basically a page that has whatever you put in your about box on your profile and your picks listed in text format, there's also a "View Full profile" button, which if I click I get the standard old profile.

If the second profile doesn't appear when you search for a name, you only get the standard old profile showing, then their picks don't count ....I think!

Everyone has two profiles - one for search all and the standard inworld profile. The one for search all is a webpage, and can be hidden. The other one cannot. The webpage is just an abbreviated version of the standard inworld profile.

Well, I dropped a notecard on Jeremy. He didn't respond, but hopefully he read it and will get one of those done one of these days.

No they don't, unless Linden Lab have very recently changed it.

What's different about it?

The web profile is the one that can be seen, the second link. If you didn't want to be found, you uncheck the box about being found on the web and poof, it's gone. Much like this:

http://world.secondlife.com/resident/43bdff02-12d8-4077-81dc-ddba32f38b54

One says Resident Profile: Cristalle Karami

and one just says Cristalle Karami, that's the web one, some people don't get that one. I'm pretty sure this is by design to stop people setting up alts and packing them with picks.

Don't you still get the profile that says "This person has chosen to opt out" if someone has chosen to opt out of search?

Oh, well as was said before, not all alts show up in the new search. And I'd agree that that is why they don't show up.

And yes, that is what you get for someone who chooses to opt out.

It's not just alts who don't show up. It's residents who don't fit a certain criteria. I don't think the system is clever enough to recognise an alt.

No, that person still has two profiles, the second one tells me he has chosen to opt out, some people don't get that profile to appear at all.

Try finding a newb and you'll see what I mean.

Agreed, that's the point. I don't know what the criteria is, but alts typically fit whatever this profile is. The profile is probably that of not spending any money, or not a significant amount of time inworld.