making "exact phrase" query the default?

[tokey666]

Ahoy there! I have a site with a list of businesses in the entire county. Each page is broken down into the types of businesses. Now, if the user searches for Pizza Hut, it searches (boolean) by Pizza AND Hut, correct?

Well, when the user types in pizza hut, Dominos pizza is the first on the list and pizza hut is second. I would like to correct this if possible.

So is there a way to make exact phrase searching a default without the users having the TYPE the quotation marks around what they are searching for?

Know what I mean?

I appreciate any help, and thanks for a great product!

Paul

[Ray]

There isn't currently a built-in feature to force all searches to be exact phrases.

To clarify this for other readers, this means that the user needs to enter double quote characters around the phrase "pizza hut" if they wish to look for that phrase (both words, in that order), as opposed to a page where the words appeared in a different order (eg. "pizza the hut").

However, if you are using the PHP, or ASP version, and if you are familiar with scripting in that particular language, you could modify the script to append and postpend double-quote characters before and after the search query.

[David]

The example you gave was a bit strange. It is not normal that Dominos pizza appears first when you search for Pizza Hut, with or without an exact phrase.

Maybe Dominos has optimised their page for the words Pizza Hut to trick search engines (and web surfers)

Was is the URL for the two page that appear 1 and 2 ?

--
David

[tokey666]

I appreciate the fast response, thank you.

I do understand that the feature isn't built into the program. I was just wondering where I should start if I were to edit the PHP code. (using PHP yes) I was also wondering if maybe it was different in the "nonfree" versions. I am definately purchasing one of them so I can get my entire site craweled. This is the best search script I have found so far!

To answer your question David, we are NOT searching the web at all so their SEO doesnt apply here. We are searching just the internal site. The site is designed for quick access to business names, addresses and phone numbers in the county.

Check it out:
http://www.marshallcountyonline.com/zsearch/search.php

Try the "pizza hut", pizza hut searches and see what happens.

While the search results are both on one page, it does list dominos first. AND, I use the highlight/jump to results feature. The first one it jumps to is Dominos Pizza because its the first "pizza". However, logically it should jump to the phrase pizza hut.

As far as appending and postpending double-quote characters, that may cause problems in the future for readers who don't know exactly what they are searching for. If they search for a business name that is partly correct, it won't show up if it was in quotes, ya know?

Aaannnyway, I am more worried about the jumping to the correct phrase, rather than the search RESULTS.

Any other help would be awsomely awesome.

Thanks again!

[David]

Your initial post was very mis-leading.

There was no 1st and 2nd result. There was only one search result. And both terms appears on that result page. So it is never a search result ranking issue as you indicated it was in your initial post.

If you want to edit the PHP code you are on your own. We don't support custom scripts. We end up spending too much time debugging other peoples code. If you really know PHP well, you shouldn't need to ask us where to start. If you don't know PHP you shouldn't start modifying our script.

The jumping is working corrrectly as it jumps to the word, pizza. Which was the word searched for.

-----
David

[bikesandcars]

I have this problem with searching .pdf documents

I'm having a (related) problem. I have zoom - pro installed

I have technical documents in .pdf format to index

lets say i want to look for "concrete retaining wall"

even if i bracket this in quotes or whatever...the string "concrete retaining wall" is not primarily indexed...i get results for concrete or whatnot

also (and related)

if I do an exact word search through pdf's for "concrete retaining wall" (several come up), then i go into the pdf and use the pdf search tool... I find that "concrete retaining wall" is not in the document...just concrete, retaining, and wall.

Please help, or suggest code to add, or let me beta v5, or something...If i can't search a pdf on exact phrases this search engine does not help us.

[Ray]

Check if you have "allow exact phrase searching" enabled in the Configuration window (under the Search Page tab). You probably have this disabled. Note that this option is not available in the Javascript version if that's what you are using.

[JW]

A brief note to tokey666: I tested your site, and there seems to be a problem that keeps any search results from showing up.

To fix the problem, go into the indexer program, and make sure that the base url is not blank. It should probably say "http://www.marshallcountyonline.com/" (without the quotes).

Regards,

- JW