New Search System

[Carl]

We've integrated Google search on the main site. So, when you type something into the little search box (on the left side of song pages and near the top of the home page), Google will try to figure out what you're looking for. So, if you type in Bryan Adams, it will gather our interview with him followed by some of his songs.

We decided to try this instead of keeping "search by artist" and "search by title" separately, and you can still browse by title, artist, date or category. Google is so good at search these days that it can usually figure out what you're looking for based on whatever you type in.

Let us know what you think, and if there's any way we can make it better. To try a search, type something in the box on the Songfacts homepage.

[Shawna]

lord, that's beautiful.

[Farin]

w00t, I can finally search for artists in that field

and you can even earn a bit of money with it

[Gina9]

I've enjoyed using the site for a couple of years to look up songs, their lyrics and interpreted meanings. However, I'm very disappointed not in the new keyword search for song titles. The previous alphabetical list was so easy to go through looking for what I wanted, but the Google listings not as easy for my purposes. Any chance of reverting back to the other listing?

[MindCrime]

I just discovered this when looking for a song, now it takes me a while to find what I'm looking for from fishing through results that have nothing to do with the song

[Farin]

But it has the huge advantage to work with non-exact matches!

what happened in the old system when you searched for "19th nervous breakdown"?

... "No results"

PS, the search results page needs a better (read: any) title though - in the moment it doesn't have one and thus shows the url, which is really not that pretty

Edited January 22, 2010 by Guest

[MindCrime]

The main reason why I am skeptical on it (be it a minor one that primarily affects me and no one else) is that I use the search engine for the F&G thread (word association, a-z, before&after, etc) This will make cheating finding an answer a bit harder to do. I'm not against the change though.

[Lucky]

Sounds like a great addition. I'll check it out.

[TheLizard]

I like this a lot.

[Farin]

The main reason why I am skeptical on it (be it a minor one that primarily affects me and no one else) is that I use the search engine for the F&G thread (word association, a-z, before&after, etc) This will make cheating finding an answer a bit harder to do. I'm not against the change though.

yeah, I guess for this particular issue it's not ideal... I think that's what Gina meant as well

on the other hand, probably 98% of all people who use the search function just want to find one specific song

[Lea]

Couldn't we have all three options?

I used the by letter or number option when I was getting the information for the facts.

Before, I could use the three options we had. The by letter or number was always my last choice because of all the scrolling..

I liked being able to just copy, paste and search. It would be great if we could have the old and the new. Then we'd have it all

[Gina9]

yeah, I guess for this particular issue it's not ideal... I think that's what Gina meant as well

on the other hand, probably 98% of all people who use the search function just want to find one specific song

Okay, I confess, I do often use it for that purpose. If I had one particular song in mind, I usually went straight to Google. Still, I miss the nice, long alphabetized list. And even though not exhaustive, it was more complete and not just limited to a dozen per page of the most recently searched songs. Oh well, I will adjust.

[Carl]

I think we might be able to combine the Google results with what used to come up. Let me run it by Zhivko the coder and see what he can do.

And yeah, a title will probably help.

Thanks for the feedback, and please keep it coming.

[MindCrime]

Zhivko

Awesome name, I want my next born to bear it, regardless of gender.

[MuzikTyme]

Sounds a bit like Zhivago.

I may be wrong but a name that starts with a Z sounds predominately masculine...or Russian... the movie or the heavy-weight boxing champion of the world (Klitschko).

Funny how most Russians' names end with an O.

[babyteen]

I think we might be able to combine the Google results with what used to come up. Let me run it by Zhivko the coder and see what he can do.

And yeah, a title will probably help.

Thanks for the feedback, and please keep it coming.

I'm one of those who would rather go back to the classic search. I tried this new search, and I was very disappointed that some of the information that came up was definitely irrelevant to what I'm really trying to find. So, can we please go back to the old search?

[MindCrime]

Funny how most Russians' names end with an O.

..and funny how almost all Italian last names end with a vowel.

[Carl]

How about if there's one search box, but a dropdown menu that lets you choose between title, artist, or everything (what Google thinks you want). Similar to the Allmusic.com search?

I see how if you're looking for a song, there can be some funky results.

[Lucky]

That might work. "Funky results" is the best term I could come up with for the way it works. Of course we are used to the old way, it will probably just take time to get used to.

[MindCrime]

I like Carl's idea, that would be a big improvement overall.

[Lea]

I could live with that

I wouldn't mind the combined search at all. I prefer the classic for doing the facts thread but the new search option would be great for some of the other stuff I do

[Lea]

Did you know there are 1227 songs listed under L , 1931 listed under S and 2044 songs listed under T

[MindCrime]

Did you count them yourself, or use a program like Microsoft Word to do it automatically?

[MindCrime]

The new scroll down feature works very well and is easy to utilize

[Carl]

Yeah, now we have a choice of how to search, so it's easy to find song if you know the specific title or artist (the old way). We're still working on making the results page for the Google-style search more paletable.