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Do people really think search is a solved problem ? I still have difficulty finding information I need for work from company Intranets I still have difficulty

Do people really think search is a solved problem ? I still have difficulty finding information I need for work from company Intranets I still have difficulty finding really local information I still have trouble finding news that is objective and not slanted or click bait I still have difficulty finding recommendations on finding recommendations for good books to read It seems to be like Google has really dropped the ball on search since they acquired "lock-in" through Gmail, Chrome sync, Android etc.

rurban 9y ago
For cooperate intranets Google is not a possibility. There xapian, elasticsearch or lucene are the best, with xapian dominating the backend and the Java stuff the frontends. For the others SEO optimizations are a real problem, yes. You can only try alternatives, like searx.to, bing or asking around.
- angry_octet 9y ago
  Most corporate information isn't accessible via http. Even SMB is being deprecated, in favour of proprietary document databases, where companies are locked into to extremely expensive but feebly engineered "solutions".
- Chriky 9y ago
  > xapian, elasticsearch or lucene are the best, with xapian dominating the backend and the Java stuff the frontends Elasticsearch uses Lucene under the hood, in my experience Lucene dominates the actual indexing and searching, although I'm not familiar with xapian. By users, I reckon SharePoint search (FQL) is probably the biggest although it is way behind Lucene in features. Google actually used to sell bright yellow branded racks that they would come and install on corporate networks to provide a "private Google" but I'm not sure if they still do.
  - rurban 9y ago
    With "xapian dominating" I meant the technical side. Of course lucene has more marketshare, because of the better elasticsearch frontend, and browser support. I.e highlighting and jumping to the results in word or PDF docs. I wouldn't trust Google locally neither, and it's expensive. SharePoint search is unfortunately used too often, yes.
    - Chriky 9y ago
      What aspects does Xapian beat Lucene at?
      - rurban 9y ago
        Everything backend related. Much faster, much less memory, more backend features, huge indices - Google scale. (Gmane was its most prominent public user). Lot of language bindings like PHP, Perl, python.
        Chriky 9y ago
        Can you link to evidence of it being faster, and expand on what you mean by "more backend features"? I believe you, I just can't find evidence online. My application is not that big, around 10 million text files, but I would be interested in anything faster (or allowing more complex queries) than Lucene, which is what I use at the moment.

rurban 9y ago

For cooperate intranets Google is not a possibility. There xapian, elasticsearch or lucene are the best, with xapian dominating the backend and the Java stuff the frontends. For the others SEO optimizations are a real problem, yes. You can only try alternatives, like searx.to, bing or asking around.

angry_octet 9y ago
Most corporate information isn't accessible via http. Even SMB is being deprecated, in favour of proprietary document databases, where companies are locked into to extremely expensive but feebly engineered "solutions".
Chriky 9y ago
> xapian, elasticsearch or lucene are the best, with xapian dominating the backend and the Java stuff the frontends Elasticsearch uses Lucene under the hood, in my experience Lucene dominates the actual indexing and searching, although I'm not familiar with xapian. By users, I reckon SharePoint search (FQL) is probably the biggest although it is way behind Lucene in features. Google actually used to sell bright yellow branded racks that they would come and install on corporate networks to provide a "private Google" but I'm not sure if they still do.
- rurban 9y ago
  With "xapian dominating" I meant the technical side. Of course lucene has more marketshare, because of the better elasticsearch frontend, and browser support. I.e highlighting and jumping to the results in word or PDF docs. I wouldn't trust Google locally neither, and it's expensive. SharePoint search is unfortunately used too often, yes.
  - Chriky 9y ago
    What aspects does Xapian beat Lucene at?
    - rurban 9y ago
      Everything backend related. Much faster, much less memory, more backend features, huge indices - Google scale. (Gmane was its most prominent public user). Lot of language bindings like PHP, Perl, python.
      - Chriky 9y ago
        Can you link to evidence of it being faster, and expand on what you mean by "more backend features"? I believe you, I just can't find evidence online. My application is not that big, around 10 million text files, but I would be interested in anything faster (or allowing more complex queries) than Lucene, which is what I use at the moment.