Backlight search customization

[dsegar]

I have run into a quirk with the Search engine in Backlight. This probably affects very few sites but it does affect mine. The search algorithm is based on factors including the number of time a term is repeated in a given page as it should be. However, it results in an uneven weighting for album sets that are both based on Pangolin album but one is a slideshow presentation and the other is a single image presentation (Album->Photo Presentation->Presentation Type). For the “Single-image” type the browser is presented with (and presumably the search engine sees) a separate page for each image, while the “Slideshow” type present the browser with a single page listing ALL links to images in that slideshow (check this by looking at the Page Source). I believe this is results in higher priority for slideshow albums that contain multiple images with the same search term are prioritized over albums with single images. This is probably not a problem for most sites but on my site it means that slideshow images overwhelm the search results even to the point that my single image albums are not even displayed in the search results (only a limited number of all possible results are returned).

This behavior is the opposite of what I want. I need to prioritize my single image pages/albums/album sets in the search results above my slideshow/albums/album sets in the search results. I am perfectly willing to customize my site to achieve this but at least would need to have complete documentation on how the Backlight Search function is configured. If anyone can provide a lead to where that info can be found please let me know.

Matthew. I am NOT asking for the current search function to be changed. However, in some future update I suggest that this issue can be fixed (and the search function drastically improved for everyone) if capability could be provided to prioritize album sets (or individual albums)in the search results. For example, Album Set A 100%, Album Set B 80%, Album Set C 10% as is pretty much standard in crawlers used for indexing web sites.

[rod_barbee]

Until @Ben can comment further, here is the documentation:

Searching Backlight | Backlight

and this further explanation:

SEARCH yields strange results

I will try to explain it in clearer terms, at least for the benefit of other readers who may be interested. Our search creates a score for every album and photo that matches the search terms. An album or photo that matches more of the search terms in more places (e.g in a title or a description or an associated keyword) will be given a higher score. Let’s say a given photo matches two search terms in each of those three places, it will be given a score of 6. Another photo only matches one sear…

and this that mentions that the page copy of an album is also included in search:

Accentuated characters in the search module

Hi Pierre, is this the documentation you’ve been looking at? https://blog.theturninggate.net/2018/02/19/mastering-backlights-search/ We may need to update details of what is searched. The proof is in the code. Albums are searched by: title, description and page copy. Photos are searched by: title, caption, filename and keywords Albums are also returned if they include photos that matched in 2) I haven’t yet had time to look into how accents are handled in search, and what we can do to impr…

[Ben]

Backlight’s search does not crawl the website. It’s a database search that is not influenced by the type of gallery that’s used. As you have found, albums that contain more match images for the search terms are promoted above those with fewer matches.

It sounds like your use case is very specific. I can’t see how improving it for this case would be beneficial to a larger group of users.