Site note: Testing Bing “site search”

The Google site-search feature we’ve been using for a while is far from perfect – though we’re still Google fans in general, it seems that Microsoft‘s Bing is on the ascendancy, so we’re testing its site search instead. What you’ll notice if you try the new (unlabeled – that’s how MSFT coded it) search box (top of sidebar) is that your search will open a popup that stretches across the center of the WSB page you’re on, with two tabs – the default is the WSB search for your term, and if you click the WEB tab, it’ll show you web-wide results for your search. Let us know what you think; it’s an easy switch back if you think the Google box worked better. (And if you’re looking for something you’ve seen in our forum, including the keyword forum in your search will help find it.)

Leroniusmonkfish September 27, 2009 (12:40 am)

Bing Bang Gone

Kevin September 27, 2009 (12:43 am)

It’s OK… I still lean towards Google.

Leroniusmonkfish September 27, 2009 (12:47 am)

I’ve typed in basic searches such as “Leronius” with no results?

WSB September 27, 2009 (12:51 am)

Interesting. I got three results but they were comments/forum posts with somebody addressing you. So this may indicate Bing doesn’t pick up the “comment by” field. Keep the feedback coming! – TR

Mike September 27, 2009 (1:29 am)

Hey look, nextag selling some stuff on the right side…oh, those are not ads on WSB. Bing, it’ll take your traffic away, it’s also incredibly slow since the server response from Microsoft is lagging with the result set.

Bill Corrigan September 27, 2009 (7:39 am)

It’s ok. Funny, there were ads on my first search, but not on the other two…

Babs September 27, 2009 (8:52 am)

First search, no ads, second one, right side ads, kept searching on general key words and ADS…. I also use Firefox. Firefox and Bing? The Blog title is halfway covered when viewing comments. I vote Google.

MargL September 27, 2009 (9:02 am)

I wish there were a way to sort the results by post date. Maybe there is and I’m missing it?

LS September 27, 2009 (9:38 am)

I think it’s great you are testing out different technologies to see what works best!

For me, Bing search was fine. No ads displayed. No alignment problems with the blog. I’m using Firefox.

Will keep trying more searches…

LS September 27, 2009 (9:55 am)

Upon further testing in both IE7 & Firefox there is one thing about the way that search results are displayed that makes them not as easy to navigate.

The Bing search results box can’t be moved on the page or expanded to a larger window.

Therefore searches with a large # of results require scrolling in a small window. (Tested this on two different computers to make sure it wasn’t me.)

It seems like the Google search results box was expandable?

On a side note regarding the ads –

The sponsored ads displayed are contextual – meaning – depending on what keywords you are searching for, a sponsored at may or may not be displayed.

My first searches had no sponsored ads running related to the keywords I was searching with.

The other searches I did had broader keywords an therefore sponsored ads were displayed.

Gene September 27, 2009 (9:59 am)

I’d strongly vote for Google over Bing.

For example, searching for:

Farmers Market

in the current Bing search, I’m taken to a page that has “Feb 1” as the date of the first result.

Doing the same search using Google:

site:wetseattleblog.com Farmers Market

the first result is a page that has a listing for the Farmers’ Market for Sept 27th, 2009 (today).

If possible, I’d put both search engines on the site and let people compare.

Having said that, I would have recommended the following before changing the default:

1. Look at your site states/analytics to examine the most common searches performed on the site.

2. Plug those into both search engines (limiting results to your site) and see if either engine gives more consistent search results.

Great to see you guys experiment and trying new things though!

Thanks,
Gene

WSB September 27, 2009 (10:20 am)

Gene, we know lots about our analytics. But there’s no substitute for some feedback. It’ll take me about :30 to switch back but it’s the weekend and it seemed like an interesting experiment to run. I had been asked by several people if we would consider switching and while my anecdotal experience with Bing hadn’t impressed me yet, I thought it would be interesting to get some feedback – exactly what’s happening now! I do like the popup/side-by-side WSB/web aspect of the Bing results but without being able to sort by date – and if they aren’t searching all fields on the site – that’s a big concern. Keep the feedback coming, anybody who has a chance to try – TR

Marco September 27, 2009 (11:15 pm)

Try this for some blind searching – maybe the results will surprise you ;)

http://blindsearch.fejus.com/?q=west+seattle&type=web

WSB September 27, 2009 (11:24 pm)

Well, that settles it for me. The one I picked for the most relevant results turned out to be Google. Although it doesn’t completely address the issue of best site search … which I wish we could handle with the WP built-in search, but that doesn’t search the Forums at all, which is why we can’t use it at the moment … TR

Marco September 28, 2009 (3:29 pm)

Tracy,

I’m not a big SEO expert, but have you tried a sitemap to get the big Goo to index the forums?

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=34444

WSB September 28, 2009 (3:32 pm)

Thanks. The forums are indexed – but there are a few tweaks that need to be made (and we have a fine developer working on it as we speak) – the problem was mostly with WordPress’s own search, and tying together the WordPress installation plus the Forums’ bbPress installation. I tried a different way of using Google but it bombed miserably so I went for a default widget – I will probably try the “different way” before reinstalling The Big G – thanks! TR

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