m_curry's profile

40 Messages

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1.4K Points

Thursday, July 9th, 2020 10:54 PM

6

Enhance the search engine with exact matches

I like that when you type in a title in the search engine, it gives you a dropdown with some possibilities/suggestions with regards to what you may be looking for (usually it gives you three different options). But here's my problem.

If what you're looking for has a short and simple title, the options that dropdown don't always give you exactly that title. One example is when you search "Batman." As of this writing, the first option in the dropdown list is "The Batman," the new upcoming movie directed by Matt Reeves. The second option is "Batman Begins." The third option is "Batman," the Tim Burton movie from 1989. If I want to search for the 1989 Tim Burton movie, I'm in luck to find it in the dropdown list.

However, this isn't always the case. If I want to find the 1981 movie "Thief" directed by Michael Mann, all I can type in is "Thief." But when I do that, the three following titles show up in the dropdown list (as of this writing) are: "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief," "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End," and "Honest Thief." None are what I'm looking for.

The dropdown list of possibilities/suggestions should (when possible) first list exact matches. When it comes to the Batman incident, if I wanted to search "Batman Begins," I should type in "Batman Begins." I CAN type "Batman Begins" and I'm shown exactly what I want. But when it comes to the Thief incident, I can't find the 1981 Michael Mann movie in the dropdown list. If I or someone else wants to find the Percy Jackson movie, they could/should search "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief." And that will give them exactly what they're looking for in the dropdown list. If I want to find the 1981 Michael Mann movie, I can only type in "Thief" (yet it doesn't show up in the dropdown list).

The point I'm trying to make is that if what you type is verbatim compared to the title you're looking for, it should show up in the dropdown list of possibilities/suggestions.

Champion

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5K Messages

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118.1K Points

4 years ago

When I search (on the desktop site) for Thief, the 1981 Michael Mann film IS among the dropdown options, but fairly low (the last one).

If it had NOT appeared at all, you can continue the search by hitting Enter (or clicking the Search icon "magnifier") or clicking the link at the bottom of the dropdown.

If that had not produced the film you sought, you have two more chances to get there, with "More title matches" and "Exact title matches."

While you feel that an exact match is more qualified to appear on the dropdown, IMDb uses the titles' current popularity to choose what to display on the dropdown. The IMDb choice makes sense to me.


40 Messages

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1.4K Points

I know that you type in "Thief," click ENTER and find the movie. But it would be more convenient to give verbatim results first. Here's what it looks like on my laptop when I search "Thief."


Champion

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5K Messages

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118.1K Points

Me too. And those are the most popular search results pertaining to Thief. To find the film you seek, you have to scroll down. 

There are 54 exact titles named Thief.
https://www.imdb.com/find?q=thief&s=tt&exact=true
The first one is the 1981 film because it's the most POPULAR.

IMDb chooses to show the most popular among all matches to Thief in the dropdown. Frankly, I'm glad it's not all exact-match dependent, because I just searched for something skipping the leading "The", and got what I wanted immediately. If I had to type the exact title to get what I want, I'd have to know things like MASH is really M*A*S*H, etc.

So what you're calling convenient for your particular example is not always convenient in all circumstances for all people. And the inconvenience is so small in your example: just scroll down to the bottom of the dropdown!

2.7K Messages

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82.6K Points

4 years ago

I agree. I was at friends the other day and we watched Chef! (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108723/reference). When they tried to look for it on IMDb, they had trouble finding it, which made IMDb look bad.