[LINK] And then the White Pages falls prey to the redesigners...

[rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au]

Always one, eh!

Eric Scheid wrote:

>On 10/8/06 12:28 PM, "rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au" <rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au>
>wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I wanted the number of an Apple dealer in Chatswood called Mac Centric. So in
>>the business name I put Mac Centric, and in the suburb/postcode field I put
>>2067.
>>
>>The search results start at A-Mac constructions in Kenthurst, postcode 2156,
>>there are 72 listings, and none of them are the number I wanted anyway. What's
>>the use of a search filter that doesn't work?
>>    
>>
>
>Try searching for MacCentric (no space!) and you get exactly one match, the
>exact one you wanted.
>
>  
>
Ok, caught on spelling, but the design of the process doesn't help. If 
you misspell and get zero results, you try something else. If you 
misspell and get 72 results, and you don't even start at the right 
letter, there's a lot of ploughing to find out that you backed the wrong 
horse.

>My guess is that it couldn't find an entry for "Mac Centric" and so
>broadened the search for everything containing the word "Mac" or the word
>"Centric" ... but (stupidly) only exactly the word "Mac", and not words
>starting with Mac, such as MacCentric.
>  
>
That's acceptable for a search engine, but not (IMO) a phone directory.

RC

>A search for "Big Mac Insulation" returns just the one entry for "Big Mac
>Insulation", but a search for "Big Mac" returns many partial match entries
>such as "Asagao Mac" and "At Home With Mac" and "Big Chook".
>
>This isn't a web design problem (although there are plenty of those also
>present), this is a search engine problem. Stemming, graceful expansion of
>results, etc.
>  
>

>e.
>
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>