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Dislike the new Wowhead search "feature"
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Post by
Fylwind
So I noticed that Wowhead has a new search functionality, which (imo) feels like a step backwards. Even if I type the spell exactly right, it often refuses to give me the results that I'm interested in (e.g. the spells, NPCs, etc), but instead redirects to a page of results related to News, Forums, and Guides.
For example, try searching for "Archeology", and none of the links point to the
profession spell
that I'm actually interested in reading about, but instead shows a list of results semi-related to Archeology from the News, Forums and Guides -- which is fine, but isn't Wowhead database supposed to be #1 priority?
Is this a bug or a feature? Either way, I feel that this has made the search feature far too unreliable for me and I'd rather go back to just Googling the results.
Thanks for reading this.
Post by
MonsterERB
Try searching for "arch
a
eology", which is the correct spelling, and you might have more luck. Just saying. ;)
Post by
Makhunty
I find it searching for something more frustrating now where u mispell it and it takes you to some news page. Earlier google results would correct it for you and most of the time it would point you to the correct page in the results.
Post by
Balgair
I find it irritating when I want to go to a page with a long name and just type part of the name, enough to identify it uniquely though - under the old search system, it'd take me directly to the page anyway, now I end up on a search page which has the item I wanted on first tab, then a whole load of news articles etc. So now I have to click on a link or else spend time typing the entire name out, yeah, ok, it functions but the old one was more convenient for the user!
Can see how it may be a good thing to have news and guides searchable, but... maybe make it an option via an advanced search checkbox or something? And yeah, I also find it annoying to have to perfectly spell everything now the Google "Did you mean...?" feature is gone, typos do happen when you're in a hurry (like, in the middle of something ingame and need a quick bit of info!)
Post by
Nulgar
Balgair was the first to explain the problem in a comprehensible way. I guess it would be nice if the Google results still were there, maybe even as the default tab if there are no results from the database but only ones from news or guides.
Post by
asakawa
It's funny, I always viewed the google results coming up as meaning that I'd failed to give the correct input and immediately pressed back and tried again. Clearly this isn't the way many people were using it and it's been a bit of an eye opener to hear the feedback when, for me, the changes have been wholly positive.
I say this merely conversationally and more as 'I was doing it wrong all this time' rather than 'you've been doing it wrong all this time'.
Post by
stijnherreman
Disliking this change. Just searched for "tricks and treat
s
of pandaria". Under the old system, I would have been asked if I meant "Tricks and Treat of Pandaria". Now it shows me a bunch of news posts.
Post by
Balgair
Another thing that feels unintuitive which I forgot to mention on my original post: if I search for more than one word, it correctly gives only results containing both words for items, NPCs etc, but news and guides will give results containing only one of the words. Which can mean a LOT of irrelevant results.
For example, searching for "ripe carrot" (missing the "juicycrunch" out, since hey, who's got time to type a long name out in full), used to take me directly to
Ripe Juicycrunch Carrot
. Now, it gives me that as the first result, which is ok, even if it needs an extra click, that's just a minor annoyance. But if I'd also typoed it, say I was in a hurry and typed "ripe carrt" by mistake, my results are a bunch of completely unrelated news, guides and forum posts which happen to contain the word "ripe" and 99% have nothing to do with either carrots or carrts: see
http://www.wowhead.com/search?q=ripe+carrt
for more.
I much preferred when it let Google guess what I really meant (which most of the time was right, and when it wasn't, I'd do as asakawa says above: hit back and try again!), rather than to find myself faced with a massive heap of completely irrelevant results. If it at least used AND instead of OR as the default logic when more than one word was present it would feel a bit better (it already does this for items, NPCs, spells etc, so I find it very odd that it doesn't for the new search result tabs - is this actually intended?).
Post by
Fylwind
Try searching for "arch
a
eology", which is the correct spelling, and you might have more luck. Just saying. ;)
Maybe one day there will be only one dialect of English... Thanks for pointing out though. Still would prefer to have the Google results back (or something similar to "Did you mean XXX?").
Post by
SpiffyJr
You came, we listened, and I'm about to conquer. Give me some time to get this updated.
Post by
SpiffyJr
http://www.wowhead.com/search?q=herod%27s+sholder
If nothing but news/guides/forums is shown then there is now a "Did you mean..." tab that shows google results.
Post by
CalaelenDT
Great work Spiffy!
Post by
Balgair
Looks great, thanks!
Post by
Fylwind
Awesome thanks for the change! Now I'll know how to properly spell my words. :)
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