Concerning the search engine on TechNet and MSDN
I am continiously using search engines to find documentation and more.
i think there is a problem with the MSDN search engine. It does not provide relevant results.
for exemple, if you try "compact framework .net 2 redist", it will find some results concerning the compact framework, some results concerning .NET etc ...
Live first results concern the .NET framework download but not the compact framework... not so good.
If you google for "compact framework .net 2 redist" the first result is the download page of the compact framework 2 Redist. This is relevant.
So, i post not to say that google is better, but to say that the search engine is not really helpfull because the results are not relevant.
[742 byte] By [
clinic] at [2008-2-7]
hi clinic - thanks for the feedback. The particular problem you're running into is with the word "redist"-- if you spell that word out and change your query to compact framework .net 2 redistributable you'll get the expected results with your desired download as the #1 result from MSDN Search (and with plain Live Search too).
Here's what I think is going on. All search engines have ways of dealing with synonymous terms, for example VB & Visual Basic, or Compact Framework and CF, which enables you to search for a term and get results matching not just that term but also its synonyms. To illustrate this, if you searched for CF 2 redistributable (on either Live or Google) and got your redist download as the first result, despite that the word "CF" isn't present on that page. Both Live and Google know that "CF" is the same as "Compact Framework".
In this case, because "redist" is not on the page you're looking for, nor on any pages which link to it (I checked using the link: keyword of both Live and Google), the only way the Search Engine would know to return the right page would be to use a synonym dictionary. Clearly, in this case Google was able to know that "redist" is a synonym for "redistributable" but Live Search does not. I'm not sure why. Perhaps Live is making more conservative judgements about the threshold where two terms become synonyms, to avoid "false positive" synonyms? I'll ask the Live folks & see if I can get someone over there to post a response-- tehcnically, this is an interesting problem.
In any case, in the future you might want to try spelling out abbreviations if you don't see the result you're looking for right away.
your explanation is really interesting, and i understand why Live search was unable to find the right page.
First, you are right, searching with the full 'redistributable' word gets download page as the #1 result. You are right too saying that 'redist' never appears on this page.
Technically, it will be really interesting if you can have a response from Live search team, because if it happen with 'redist' it could maybe happen with other common synonymous.
I must confess that i am a google user, and years after years, you adopt habits, and my way to use a search engine is maybe impregnate with the google style. This point is important because, the way you use a search engine affects the way the engine behaves. That's make me feeling this engine does not give relevant results, but in fact, it is maybe me that does not use well the engine.
Thanks you for your answer Justin, i hope you will have soon an answer, or some informations from search live's Team.
Do you have some news ?
Concerning the search engine, i must add that when i use the textbox in the msdn library page, all search with C# have the same error :
when i clic on the search button
"text C#" become "text C" when arrived on the search result page. Then, if i type it again on the textbox of the search result page, it work fine.
The # char seems to be not or badly forwarded.
Thanks Clinic, we're investigating the C# issue for a hotfix.
Another comment about the C# issues is that if you type in something like C# delegates, it will remove everything after the # sign as well, so C# delegates becomes a search for "C"
also, looking at the broken search, and then the working search URL:
http://search.msdn.microsoft.com/search/Default.aspx?query=C#%20delegates&brand=msdn&locale=en-us&refinement=00&lang=en-us
http://search.msdn.microsoft.com/search/Default.aspx?brand=msdn&query=C%23+delegates
it looks like the front page (msdn2.mircosoft.com) doesn't translate the # into the %23 code and doesn't recognize anything after it to be parsed by spaces into added search words.
Edit:
More information, it seems that there are more character that aren't translated. When typing in "C++ Operator Overloading", the search becomes "C Operator Overloading". This occurs from the main MSND page as well as the documentation pages.
Hii - while my thread just got ... uhmmm ... moved (?) ... to the Bugs-Section I have somewhat similar problems. The search is just ... useless to me sometimes. Probably I just don't how to use it correctly - i don't know.
I use the search (MSDN) from the lib/docu-page. Mostly from VC++ / Lang Ref Subsection of there. So when I start off there and tye as e.g. "static" I get million results - too many in my eyes. Not the sesult I'm looking for which is supposedly somewhere under C++ L/R. Whatsoever: I wish the search would return the appropriate L/R-Pages first when I type a Lang.-Keyword or Ident.
And - en plus - I wish I can restrict the search to some subsection. So if I press Search for C++ - not for the whole MSDN. y know?
