RE:::: Key points on relevancy and the Catalog
Orig post June 10,2008
Heya all,
So we have received quite a few emails around the catalog and relevance, and it appears there is some best practice
information we can provide to help with your catalogs.
The IMVU Catalog has a search feature to allow users to find
specifc kinds of items that they are looking for. By default, products in catalog search are ordered by their relevance based
on the keywords that people are searching for. Therefore, you should name and describe your products using the terms that
users might be interested in searching for if you'd like them to find your products using search.
For example:
Good:
"Argyle Black Socks"
Bad: "[XYZ]**Argyle~Blk~Socks**"
The extra information in second title would make the second
result get sorted lower. Both results would still be returned in a search for "argyle black socks" or "black argyle socks",
or even "argyle socks", but the more relevant one is judged to be the one that has a better match.
The combination
of attractive and relevant titles, descriptions, and keywords will all make your products more likely to be returned to users
who are looking specifically for what you have to offer.
The underlying search feature of the IMVU Catalog is powered
by Apache Lucene, an industry-standard open source package used for smart searching. You can find out more information about
this technology at [
lucene.apache.org].
Plus, answers to a few questions posed to us:
If a product has both the relevant search terms in its title,
key words and product descritpion this would give it more relevancy? Yes, Relevant search terms in all fields make it more
relevant
Would adding extraneous information in any of the three fields (title, k words, desrpt) like creator name,
random adjectives would lower its relevancy? Yes, Extraneous information hurts your relevance score when someone is searching
for something specific
Would adding extraneous information in a product page description that are not related to the
search (adverts for selling credits, messages to friends, etc) would lower their relevance? Yes, Extra information in the
description also lowers the overall relevance.
This is going to be a locked thread for information usage only. I will
try to add more information relating to the catalog as I receive it.
Thanks,
_________________
Rob \"Guardian\"
Quick
Creator Community Manager
IMVU Inc
