| Some of you might be thinking, how does this search engine work? I have 2 explanations that share a common answer, but 1 is a bit more complicated, and requires some php/mysql knowledge.
For those of you who have a background in php/mysql here is the abbreviated explanation. The search engine will take all terms, encapsulate them in parenthesis and compare them to titles, descriptions, and tags using LIKE, and all share OR Boolean operators, which in turn returns the maximum amount possible. Furthermore, it prioritizes words the earlier they are in the query, for example the query 'free online games' will get websites with free first, then online, etc. For those of you who do not have a background in php/mysql here is an explanation I think you will understand. When you enter words like 'free online games', the server side coding (called PHP) will reference big tables (called MYSQL) which are basically like a big excel spreadsheet. There are 4 columns in the site table. Title, Description, URL, Tags. The PHP code will check for any site that has at least 1 of the words in your query ('free online games'). For example, a site that has the word free as a tag will be displayed somewhere on the search results page. You may have heard of something called a Boolean Operator (AND, OR, etc). Those operators tell the PHP code how to search for a website. If it searched for free OR games, any site with free OR games in the info will be displayed. If the operator was AND, the site would have to have BOTH free AND games in the information. GamersIndex uses OR as default at the moment to maximize the search results, which exposes a problem. What if you wanted to find a site that had both? There is an alternative, not a perfect one, but one none the less. GamersIndex search protocool will prioritize words in the order they are entered. For example, 'free online games' will prioritize sites with free first, online second, and games third. Using that, you can priortize the sites you want to see. Stay tuned for more features, specifically customizeable Boolean Operators, in the near future! -GamersIndex Staff |