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frenchbarn

Display order of discussions after a "search"?

THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada
9 years ago
Hello fellow Houzzers!
I'm wondering if anyone has the same problem (and a solution!) or if something changed in my settings somewhere... I rely on the search bar a lot to find and participate in discussions. After I search for the terms I'm interested in, the discussions used to be listed starting with the one that had the most recent replies. For the past 2 weeks, it seems that the order has become completely random. The discussions on the first page of the search results have not been active for months, if not years, and there is no easy way (that I can find) to change this!
This seems to be the case only when doing a search.

Any help would be appreciated!

Patrick
Featured Answer
  • Emily H
    9 years ago
    You can now click on the Latest Activity filter on the left hand side after performing a search and see the results in chronological order of last activity. Hope that helps!

    Comments (22)

    • Jeannie Nguyen
      9 years ago
      Hi Patrick, try refining your search by putting your key words in quotation marks. Example: "kitchen countertops."
    • PRO
      THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada
      Original Author
      9 years ago
      Thank you Jeannie, but I never had to do so before. I just tried it, and the same discussion (that hasn't been active in 1.5 years) still takes top spot, along with many other old threads! My issue is not so much about the "quality" or relevance of the results, but only about the messed-up order in which they appear.
      Cheers!

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    • PRO
      Oak & Broad
      9 years ago
      I am seeing this same issue starting a few days ago.
      THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada thanked Oak & Broad
    • PRO
      Oak & Broad
      9 years ago
      Still happening. The natural chronological function of the query is showing items from two years ago first.
      THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada thanked Oak & Broad
    • PRO
      THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada
      Original Author
      9 years ago
      Hello Houzz team, any chance we can get an answer / solution to that? I also submitted a support request a few days ago and haven't heard anything... it seems like a glitch in the search function, regardless of the search terms / category...
    • Emily H
      9 years ago
      Hi there,

      When you are performing a search with keywords, the results should be in the order most relevant to the search terms you provided, so will not be in chronological order.

      Using the filters on the left side of the discussions page should give you results with the latest activity, however.

      Also, can you clarify if this is an issue you are seeing only on the web or apps or both?
    • PRO
      Oak & Broad
      9 years ago
      Emily, i've been using this function on Houzz for a couple years now. It just changed a few days ago. Go search for any word you like and review the results, even better select the option for new or recent activity. Review the results and see if they are old threads. I've opened a trouble ticket on this too with no response yet.
    • PRO
      THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada
      Original Author
      9 years ago
      last modified: 9 years ago
      I get the same results on the website, or app. Clicking on "latest activity" does not change the results. A discussion is only relevant if it is recent :) "Oak & Broad" essentially summed it up! It is most certainly either a glitch, or something that your software gurus changed in the search function!
    • Emily H
      9 years ago
      Hi all - thanks for your patience. You are correct. A change was made to the order in an effort to make sure the most relevant results according to the search terms showed up first. We're taking a look now!
      THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada thanked Emily H
    • PRO
      Oak & Broad
      9 years ago
      In my opinion it already worked perfectly, the change that was made has had the opposite effect. I did the same search several times this week and got identical results with no updates.
    • PRO
      THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada
      Original Author
      9 years ago
      Thank you for looking after this, Emily, much appreciated! The iPhone app is still a little tricky to get the results to display in chronological order, but it's much better than seeing 2-year-old discussions!
      Patrick
    • PRO
      THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada
      Original Author
      9 years ago
      Emily, it seems that I can't get the app to display discussions from a search in chronological order...
      When you do a search in the app, the results appear by relevance. Choosing the "New" filter erases the search terms and sends you back to the overall Advice section.

      Thank you for looking into this for us!

      Patrick
    • PRO
      Oak & Broad
      9 years ago
      The French Barn (patrick) is this happening to you again by any chance?
    • PRO
      THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada
      Original Author
      9 years ago
      Yes, indeed!

      I can only get search results sorted by Relevance, which is in reality completely irrelevant as the threads showing are usually 1-2 years old!

      All other filters do nothing. I contacted Houzz support a week ago, still waiting for a fix.

      Good to know i'm not the only one having this issue.
    • PRO
      THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada
      Original Author
      9 years ago
      Emily, Jeannie,

      Any chance we can get some resolution on that? Oak & Broad and I can't be the only one having this issue...
      It's been 10 days since I reported the issue to Houzz Support, and it's not fixed yet, so it looks to me like it was a deliberate decision (for whatever reason). Houzz is slowly becoming useless to me, as I don't have time to browse through 100's of discussions every day to find the few where I might be able to contribute.

      Thanks,
    • PRO
      Oak & Broad
      9 years ago
      Original ticket # 87814 from 6 months ago when this happened the first time may shed some light on things. Several daily contributors have expressed similar sentiments to The French Barn.
      THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada thanked Oak & Broad
    • Emily H
      9 years ago
      Hi there,

      It looks like the current issue is that the the relevancy of your search terms is high enough that despite the filters applied, the top results do not change much (or in some cases at all) We are actively looking at ways to tweak this to make the results more in keeping with what your expectations would be when clicking those filters. Stay tuned!
    • PRO
      THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada
      Original Author
      9 years ago
      Glad to hear from you, Emily...
      I am not exactly sure what this means, but I had no issues before with the exact same search terms. The results would show exactly as they show now by default (filter by "Relevance"), but would change and display correctly when using the other filters ("Latest Activity" being the most useful for me).

      Everything worked fine, *something* changed in the search algorithm, and now the search filters are useless. Simple as that.
    • PRO
      Oak & Broad
      9 years ago
      last modified: 9 years ago
      Code for the site was changed overnight. I've been using it daily for years. Those filters were made irrelevant. Sadly industry professionals with very specific high degrees of niche experience will no longer be able to share that experience with other Houzz users. I was reading through several threads earlier today and responses have become very generalized and based on opinions or general ideas. However! my phone has been ringing off the hook from people asking for very specific information they can no longer get answered on Houzz.
    • PRO
      THE FRENCH BARN - Lacanche Canada
      Original Author
      9 years ago
      THANK YOU!!!
      It's good to see that *someone* (I wont give names here) at Houzz cares and understands that sweeping an issue under the rug doesn't make it go away.
      It was obviously a simple fix since it was resolved in less than 24 hours...

      Everything is back to normal, and I think it will benefit everyone here, not just the few of us who complained.
    • Emily H
      9 years ago
      You're welcome. :)
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