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I've noticed two days ago the search cache (or what system this uses) seem to have been reset (on Google's side?) and it just couldn't find articles, instead showing olf forum posts and live blogs. Today the search seem to be relatively fine, so maybe it had to re-index the results. Getting own search to work properly would help with issues if these are by Google.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
This is about forum search though, which seems like an entirely different process.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
^ It says "old search". The forum search uses the New Search exclusively.
Still noticeable. For example, VisualNovel.Umineko When They Cry is one of popular pages. Out of these search results, only 2 of 10 results are actual wiki articles, neither of which is the work page. It used to be more article-focused a week ago.
Is there any way to fix that on our end?
I suppose a crude patch would be to pin the first post of a forum thread, edited to have some relevant links at the top. Sort of like what TRS does.
Since it depends on Google, the only options are
- provide a sitemap feature that lets search bots to prioritize some content over other
- finish the new search and run over Elasticsearch without Google
- wait an indefinite time until Google figures out which pages are more requested
I don't understand how the pin option would work
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
It was an old and probably stupid idea I had, that I thought might work here. Since we can pin the first post, if we edit the first post to have a link to any relevant pages for the thread (and put the original first post under the line, so it's not like we're erasing it), then if people land on the forum thread they can find any trope pages they might want from there. Save a little bit of clicking and searching. Order of the Stick,
for example, has a link to the rules thread.
Originally, this went nowhere because it seemed like a lot of extra effort for no real benefit. This situation just made me think of it again. Probably still not worth it, but eh.
I think so, the search would be for "real pages" only, which reviews and liveblogs are not, until the internal search can get some filters.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
I understand old search is old for a reason, but recently it seems that the relevance sort has been changed somehow to prioritize forum results first then the actual relevant TV Tropes page. Say I search for "One Piece", it'll show all the forum discussions first and on the second page show the Manga page. The results seem to vary a bit depending on if the forums have "relevant" titles but overall it isn't actually being relevant.
New search seems to work fine but I only ever use old search.
Thank you for your time.