Auto forward to page

[jpbazinet]

Is there are way to have the search results page auto forward / redirect to the actual page when there is only 1 result?

Example: User searches for "batman"... there are 10 results.. he gets page of results

User searches for "batman begins"... there is 1 result... the search engine forwards him to that page.

[David]

This is a variation of the "Feeling lucky" button, a la Google.
Not we don't have this option.
You would require to write a small amount of custom code to make this work.

[Ray]

This is my personal opinion, but I don't think it's a good idea. It would be more confusing than useful for most people.

I know that when I perform a search, I expect to see search results, and not going to the actual page automatically. If it did that, I would be wondering if the search was broken, or if I clicked on the wrong button, and click "Back" to see if I've missed the search results somewhere, probably trying the search box again to make sure I pressed the right button, and repeat a few times to be sure. It's not typical behaviour on the Internet, and it's unusual enough to cause confusion for the end user. So from an usability point of view, I would suggest that it does more harm than good.

[jpbazinet]

I can appreciate that for most websites.
My site lists movies, and most users search for the title.
If they type 'speed racer' in the search box, it would be beneficial to have them sent to the speed racer page.

How involved would this custom code be?
Can you give me a rough estimate (in a PM if you like) as to have much it would cost to have it done?

[David]

What script option(s) are you using? (PHP, ASP, JS or CGI).

Assuming it was hard coded and you didn't want to be able to ever turn the behaviour on or off, it is probably only 3 or 4 lines of code. But maybe still 1 or 2 hours work per scripting language to implment and test.

With an additional option in the user interface to control it, help file updates, configuration file changes, etc.. it would probably be a couple of days work.

You can contact us here if interested.