Archive for Search
February 19, 2008 at 3:55 pm · Filed under Features, Miscellaneous, Search · By quirke
In this Storque article, Etsy reveals that you can now filter Colour Picker results by search terms.
The Color Picker, one of our oldest and most iconic features, has received a significant update today.
Now you can filter your color picking by using search terms! First, enter what you’re looking for in the text field on the left, then click a color on the right.
You’ll get some listings that match both the color and the search phrase. To see more results, click the “MORE” button.
You can also click different colors to see all of the results side-by-side!
In addition, we have tweaked the color averaging algorithm to be more precise. This will effect all newly uploaded listing images, so our results should get even better as time goes on.
These enhancements should make the color picker much easier to use. Let us know what you think!
You can chat about it in this thread.
February 5, 2008 at 9:12 pm · Filed under Search, Views / Counters · By JB
In this thread, Revolving Dork said:
Today we’ve added the option to filter your results in items: tags, titles searches by a price range!
Search for items using the search bar at the top of any page, and you’ll see the new Price filter tool on the right side of the screen.
Simply enter a minimum and a maximum price, click on “Show Items”, and you’ll see only listings within your price range.
With this revision we’ve also increased the number of results shown per page to 21, from the original 15 (It always has to be divisible by 3 for the gallery view!). We think this will make it easier to browse through more listings more quickly.
Capping off this update, we’ve also removed the ability to sort items by their views on all pages. This particular feature has been broken for a while now, so we’re going to keep it out of the public eye until we can get a better solution online.
Let us know if these changes are helpful!
Apparently when the change was first made, it removed the item views column from individual shops, as well as removing it from search results. But that shop item views column has been returned now.
UPDATE by GreenMamba (February 8, 2008)
Observant seller SingingSky found a glitch in the newly added sort-by-price-range feature.
I just noticed when you put a price range in the new search function, and then “sort by” it resets to all listings, and you have to re-enter the price range.
This could be potentially annoying for buyers…
You should be able to define your price range and then sort your heart out!
At least I feel this would be more convenient :)
Within the hour, RevolvingDork reported the issue resolved - another super-fast fix by admin.
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5459384
February 1, 2008 at 7:39 pm · Filed under Categories, Search, Tags, The Storque · By quirke
In this Storque article, Rob/Rokali describes some new changes to the site, focused mainly on tweaks to browsing and searching that will result in reduced category bleed, and vintage and supplies being screened out from the default search settings.
The tagline on our homepage reads Your place to buy & sell all things handmade. This was our focus when we launched Etsy two-and-a-half years ago, and it will remain our focus. However, a bit of housekeeping is needed to maintain this.
Etsy currently has over 1.1 million active listings, and more than twice this number of items have been sold. Way back when, in April or May of 2005, when we were laying out the top-level categories, we included two categories that we thought would be of great use to the community: Supplies and Vintage. We’re glad we did this, and we have been happy to see these categories thrive.
As Etsy continues to grow and the circles of people who know about the site spreads beyond crafters, we see the ratio of buyers to sellers increase. What began as a one-to-one ratio is now five-to-one, and we hope to see it around ten-to-one by the end of this year. This means means more buyers for every seller. It also means the vast majority of people coming to the site are coming here to find “all things handmade.”
We’re super sensitive to how the small businesses get pushed to the perimeter of marketplaces. Indeed, we created Etsy for the specific reason of making sure that handmade goods were kept in the center. We’re going to make some changes to the current site to make sure the center can hold.
What’s going to change?
We’re tweaking how both browsing and searching work.
The main search bar will default to searching only handmade goods. This means that vintage items and commercial supplies will, by default, be excluded from search results. Of course, the searcher can opt to include them by selecting the correct option from the drop-down menu to the right of the search bar.
Right now we have what we call “subcategory bleed.” When you click into, say, Art, you only see items whose first tag is Art. But as soon as you hit a subcategory in Art, like Drawings, you see all items who have both those tags, no matter what the first tag is. This will be remedied to work in the way that most people expect it to work (from other ecommerce taxonomies): Art > Drawings will only show items with the first tag Art; in other words, items inside that top-level category.
Three Special Considerations
One: Patterns will be moved to their appropriate places: handmade patterns with the handmade crafting supplies, and commercial patterns with the commercial supplies. The Patterns for sale on Etsy are both handmade and commercial, and should be tagged appropriately. This moving will be done automagically, and we’ll give specific advance notice for it.
Two: Handmade supplies are handmade, so they’ll still be included in the default results.
Three: We know that changes like these will require some getting used to. We’re going to give all commercial supplies and vintage items an extra 4 months of listing time in light of this.
What’s the timeframe for these changes? Our goal is to put them in place by the end of this month. Like all tasks that require engineering work, things could take longer than expected, so please keep this in mind.
The comments for this article are closed, but here is an accompanying forum thread for discussion.
UPDATE 02/02/08:
Rob/Rokali has provided a mock-up of how the new header might look.
UPDATE 02/02/08 by JB:
Rokali has posted his follow-up
January 19, 2008 at 12:25 am · Filed under Categories, Search · By quirke
Etsy has improved the search function to allow searching within categories and subcategories using tags. Previously, only searching within top level categories was possible.
See the related Storque article here.
December 11, 2007 at 12:05 am · Filed under Search · By quirke
In this thread, RevolvingDork describes some new improvements to Etsy’s search functions.
RevolvingDork says:
Hi all,
As a step towards making the search feature easier to use, we’ve fixed a few bugs and have added some more search options.
:: Please note that these changes affect only the default “tags, titles” searches ::
You can now use quote marks to search for exact words or phrases in listing titles and tags. For example, if you wanted to find items that used the exact phrase “far out”, you can now enter “far out” in the search bar to get exact results. Without quotes, you’ll get every item that uses both the word “far” and the word “out”. Quoted and non-quoted search terms can be combined, such as in “far out” pillow.
You can now also reliably use the option “NOT” or the minus sign “-“ to exclude terms from your search. For example, if you wanted to find jewelry that was not silver, you could enter jewelry -silver . If you wanted to find jewelry that was not silver and not a ring, you could enter jewelry -silver -ring .
There are a handful of other tweaks, such as no longer breaking on certain non-alphanumeric characters ( like apostrophes ). Be sure to send thanks to Jorge, Haim, and Kelly, as they’re the ones that made this update happen!
We hope these modifications make searching easier and more accurate. We’re working on further enhancements to make it even better, so stay tuned!
December 5, 2007 at 4:56 pm · Filed under Categories, Search, Site Maintenance · By starrydesigns
Just FYI in case you had issues this morning.
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5356227:
New/edited listings may take a little bit of extra time to show up under categories and when using search. There is a little bit of emergency maintenance work going on which should be done by 8am EST….
- H
Posted at 6:48 am, December 5 2007 EST
December 5, 2007 at 4:54 pm · Filed under Search, Site Use · By starrydesigns
kfarrell says:
Hey everyone,
Good news! We are preparing to launch a round of improvements to Etsy’s search function. This is the first step in a list of incremental changes we’ll be making to make it easier to find what you’re looking for on Etsy.
I need some input from you to help test it out. This feedback will also help us figure out exactly what we need to include for the next round of search improvements.
First, describe what you’re looking for, as you would explain it to a store clerk or a friend. Then tell me what you might type in the search bar to find it. And finally, note any unexpected items you see in the results (but please don’t link to specific items or call out anyone).
Here are some examples:
I’m looking for: Cards made with handmade paper, not just handmade cards that happen to be made of paper
I searched: handmade paper cards
I got these wacky results: cards made from any kind of paper, gift tags,
I’m looking for: a sweater that was handmade from scratch, not a reconstructed or appliquéd sweater
I searched: sweater
I got these wacky results: all sorts of sweaters (adult, children, doll, pet), patterns for sweaters, yarn
We know there are other issues with the search, and we aim to address those also. For the time being, please stay on task in this thread and just give examples as shown above. That will be most helpful to us right now.
Thanks!
Posted at 2:37 pm, December 5 2007 EST
Do post your results in this thread.
EDIT
The search for responses has been closed. Look here for the reason.
November 29, 2007 at 11:47 pm · Filed under Alchemy, Categories, Currency, Features, Feedback, Listings, Search, Tags, The Future · By quirke
In this thread, admin kfarrell gives a general progress/status report on many of the top issues currently concerning Etsy members.
kfarrell says:
So without making any promises or specifying any timelines, I’ll address some of the features mentioned at the beginning of the thread. A couple of them aren’t really my area so I’m afraid I’ll have to skip those.
* Checkout process needs reworking
Yes, we are working on layout changes to make this process easier for new buyers on the site who may not already be familiar with Etsy and Paypal.
* Bring alchemy back
OK!
Seriously, it will be back. And better than ever!
* Deal with categories, tags, and search
Well now that’s three features, isn’t it ;) All three of these are being actively evaluated, tweaked, and redeveloped. They are all very complicated systems that work with each other, so nothin’s gonna happen overnight.
* Clarify the place of both supplies and vintage on the site
Vintage items belong in the Vintage category, handmade and commercially produced supplies belong in the Supplies category.
* More frequent and clearer feedback to the forums from the Etsy admin team (FAQs, stickies, etc)
We have recently release a new help guides section ( http://www.etsy.com/help_guide_main.php ) which we will be adding guides to on a continual basis. We are also going through and updating the FAQs.
* More warning and user testing before introduction of new features
We do collect a lot of user input before a feature is launched, and the lead time between announcing and releasing a new feature varies from project to project.
* Bulk/multi-update for items (Shipping profiles, prices, tags)
This is a great idea, although not something we’re actively developing at this very second because we have a few bigger fish to fry, and only so many cooks can be in the kitchen at a time! Also apparently the engineers like to sleep occasionally. Yeah, I don’t get it either ;)
* Multiple currency support for sellers and buyers
This is something we are working on.
* revise flagging system
We are indeed working on a far more graceful way to handle flags
We’re also working on about 50 other BigSecrets I sadly can’t tell you about, although none of them happens to be a Dodgeball game (bummer for dodgeball fans).
We do read *all* the feedback on Etsy posted here in the forums, including the stuff that’s sometimes hard to read. So please, continue posting your ideas (both positive AND negative), I just ask that you keep things constructive and refrain from personal attacks on admins or each other. There is a human being behind every avatar on Etsy.
November 14, 2007 at 4:45 pm · Filed under Listings, Search · By quirke
In this thread, Jared announces updates to Time Machine 1 and 2:
jared says:
Both the Time Machines have been updated today to boost performance:
http://www.etsy.com/time_machine.php
http://www.etsy.com/time_machine2.php
The Time Machine 2 was updated with a few new features, including a new ‘Expiring Soon’ mode. Expiring Soon shows you listings that are about to expire, and goes back in time from there.
Be sure to clear your cache to see the new versions immediately (look for v5.0 or great next to the title right when they start up).
Please let us know if you experience any unusual phenomena, time travelers.
October 24, 2007 at 4:10 pm · Filed under Features, Search, Site Use, Tags · By The Janitor
New info added to this UEN post. Let me know if you all have a preference as to new posts or my continuing to add to the existing ones.
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