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Subject:
From:
Calum Benson <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Fri, 22 Jan 1999 15:10:19 -0000
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> However, from my own preferences and experience with searches, I think
> the following (at a minimum) should appear:
>
> Title of the page
> URL of the page
> Summary (or first 50 or so words of content -- not HTML tags!)
> Ranking (the goodness of the match between the query terms and the page)
> Date page was last altered
>
> Any suggestions?

From a personal viewpoint, I rarely find being presented with a "ranking"
value useful.  It's certainly a good idea to order the results by whatever
ranking system you choose to put the most likely match first, but I've never
found that being given a number like "53%" to be of much guidance (unless of
course I've asked for the results to be listed in some order other than
"best match first").

A simple statement of how many hits had been found on the page might be more
useful, but that might be a bit bogus depending on your search algorithm
(e.g. if it uses any sort of "closeness" ranking).  But to me, the ordering
of the search results is usually a good enough indicator.

Slainte,
Calum.

_____________________________________________________________________

CALUM BENSON                         19 Apex Court, Woodlands,
Senior GUI Designer                  Bristol BS32 4JT, UK.
Division Ltd.                        +44 1454 615554 x248
mailto:[log in to unmask]          http://www.division.co.uk

"A designer has achieved perfection not when there is nothing
 left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

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