IMDb Advanced Search Redesign

Is there a way to return to the title you were at when you go back after clicking on a title?  If there are 1000 results and I am at 876 and click it, when I go back it takes me back to 250 and I have to scroll down to 500 and then again to 750 and then find 876.  

@lhanes​ I think the only solution for now is to open the page in a new tab.

Hi @ACT_1  & @jeorj_euler​ -

The previous announcement thread was primarily for the Beta, we typically post a new announcement thread for the official launch.

I hope this helps!

@Michelle​ 

A lot of feedback in the other thread was not addressed or taken into account.

Hi @Peter_pbn​ -

The team reviews user feedback daily, and has iterated on functionality based on the feedback received. We have also included details on improvements in the launch FAQs. We appreciate all feedback and will continue to monitor it to ensure we are catching any bugs and identifying other future feature improvements opportunities. 

@alja_ciber​ and genre too.

@plur62​ I was so taken aback by the "update" I didn't even notice that at first.

The search engine is totally unusable at the moment. Let's hope for some improvements in the near future. 

Me too. That's my biggest problem. Imagine you search "French movies I've seen form the 70s" in order to check the main actors among 100 results. You can't, you have to click the {i} button one by one. We want the old display, the one still used in lists (or do we have to worry about them too?).

Since, my watch list is empty I thought of checking all the search results and then see them in watchlist but even the display in watchlist has changed! Is it possible for the user to make an automatic list of the results so he can really examine them?

Hi @wilderbyfar​ -

Thank you for your feedback. The team is evaluating options to improve the use case for matching and we will look to make this improvement in the future. We will also provide an update once this is complete.

I surmise that it prevents unsophisticated Web crawlers from scanning the entire body of search results in a given search query that may have its corresponding URL mentioned somewhere on the world-wide Web, thus saving some of IMDb's bandwidth consumption or at least reducing the amount of siphoning of IMDb data for those who aren't adamant about that. The interesting thing is that most websites are adopting these approaches, so it might all just be indicative an aberration in the database engine software libraries that may just as well be being used by the numerous and various Web developers behind many contemporary websites who nearly all appeal to the lowest common denominator when it comes to trying to attract and retain visitors.

Hi @Peter_pbn​ -

Thank you for your feedback. You are 100% correct and the team is working to update the example text.

I think, the commissioners were only looking to see if the β stage experience would horribly bug out in an unexpected way, rather than having the developers be prepared to tackle what might be considered relatively minor limitations/quirks identified by us test subjects. That's typical of contemporary software development, I suppose. Think about it, for a moment, or look at the way gamers (video game connoisseurs) behave, how they are willing to pay big money to receive an incomplete video game so as to have a chance to play it before "normies" do.

@Mitchel​ My opinion is that the quality of IMDb started to decline in 2017, when message boards and the "reference view option - old IMDb layout" (which many of us used even seven years after IMDb changed its layout in 2010), were discontinued. Since 2017, IMDb has been going downhill, every change, so-called "upgrade" of the site was getting worse and worse, and the staff regularly turned a deaf ear to all the comments of their loyal users. The site went from 9.5/10 to 5/10 in less than 7 years.

@plur62​ 😀

??

reference view option - still here

Pulp Fiction (1994)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/reference/

https://www.imdb.com/preferences/general

Contributors [_x_]  Show reference view with full cast and crew (advanced view)

.

@ACT_1​ not the same reference view. 😉

This one:

@plur62​ 😀

oooppssss!!!

Wayback Machine 
Pulp Fiction reference view 26 captures
July 20 2015
http://web.archive.org/web/20150720001402/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/reference/

- - -

Pulp Fiction 2,270 captures
July 28 2015
http://web.archive.org/web/20150728212342/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/

.

Plus, Name Reference View was removed, and now the closest we have to it is the "full credits" subpage which doesn't have thumbnails for samples items from the photos/videos galleries. I remember Title Combined View before Title Reference View was repurposed to be what Combined was.

@ACT_1​ both were great and fast! 🙂

I prefer the first one though. 🙂

Yeah, the new interface is very slow when trying to load a name page that has more than a hundred filmography items, and the "All topics" menu takes about three seconds to load, sometimes requiring the icon for it to be clicked more than once. It doesn't matter if no ad blockers or plugins are installed. It is slow.

@jeorj_euler​ It's actually extremely slow, especially on slightly older devices, fine on a new mobile, but taking forever to load all the site elements on my laptop, the site is almost unusable. It seems that IMDb is set up exclusively for mobile phone users today.

I've a relatively new smartphone (with OS Android 12), and browsing IMDb is slow even on that (with the latest version of Chrome). Alas, I've noticed that the mobile version of the Google Search website, although not slow, can become resource intensive when scrolling through search results that hot load during scrolling. For that reason, I kind of see this as a widespread problem, but definitely IMDb is among the slower when compared to websites based upon similar JavaScript functionality, maybe even being slower than Reddit and Fandom.

@Mitchel​ Totally amen to everything you've said.

I've been one of the IMDb users and contributors who participated in forums here and complained on several of the recent so-called "updates" we did not ask for. And I've been one of the many who did not really like them due to more clicks, messy looks, information spread everywhere, endless scrolling, etc...

This advanced search redesign is almost no exception either. You just search for a single genre, company or whatever, and you're literally welcome to endless scrolling, and constantly clicking for 50 more titles, unless you fill in more searches at once so you don't have to "scroll and click to death", depending on what you exactly search for. And now you even have to click on that small circle with "I" for each title if you wanna see directors and stars per title. Seriously?

And what wiseguy decided to put in that giant popcorn bucket illustration that only takes unnecessary amount of place and screams for attention anyway? When all we wanted was simply to search for anything we want. More fancy stuff we didn't need.

When we (as with most other beta tests of previous "updates") had the choice between the new one when it was beta, and the previous version, I immediately chose the latter. So simple to use, and more user-friendly as supposed than what we have now.

Sorry, but I liked the previous version of the advanced search better... a lot better. So once again, I have to get used to yet a new "update". Thanks a lot... 😒

@chribren​ Maybe this is not the final version? 🤔

If it is, then there is no point in using it anymore, because it is useless and has many disadvantages.

@plur62​ Well, who knows if this is actually the final version or not. But anyway, I'll only be using it rarely if I really need to. Otherwise, as good as never.

A huge drawback for me in this downgrade is that in the results page you can't even see the pictures of the results.  I use this almost exclusively to view the birthdays for the day.  This has made it nearly useless.

Hi, Slava. You'e not seeing posters when searching for titles? That doesn't sound like something that is supposed to happen. What is going on? Could you present here a screen shot?

@jeorj_euler​  These pictures are tiny.  In the old version they were at least big enough to see who you were looking at.

A few times the old version was back for a part of a day, but then this new joke would again rear its ugly head.  I have now given up clicking on the Born Today link on the home page, as it is now consistently only the garbage shown above.  The pictures on the home page are smaller than on the old Born Today page, and they are oval, which can cut off some things, but it's still a great deal better than what was done to the results page.  Now all I have to fear is the inevitable deconstruction of the Home Page.

Czechoslovakia is also not on the list

Hi @Peter_pbn​ -

Just confirming that this is no longer supported as a URL parameter.

Okay, but there is no need to remove the "has" parameter. Will it be replaced with something superior?

@jeorj_euler​ 

They didn't remove the "has" parameter, just the ability to exclude it.

@Peter_pbn​ 

They didn't remove the "has" parameter, just the ability to exclude it.

I am going to talk to the search team about this as the requirements were that the new search had to be backwards compatible with the old one (minus a few impractical edge cases).  The exclusion of “has” is useful for locating data gaps and therefore encouraging data contribution. 

@Peter_pbn We have confirmed that this was missed in the requirements and the team will take a look once we have completed the next phase of the launch. 

@lhanes​ During the beta, I was able to add 

&count=250

to the url.

(I don't have access yet to the new ATS.)

Sometimes it will be available in incognito sessions with renewed cookies.

@losingmymind​ Thanks for the feedback.  Please see the Advanced Search FAQ at https://help.imdb.com/article/imdb/new-features-updates/advanced-search-redesign/G73SLJ6K33AA6NB5 

Hi @dingbatterwarrior​ -

To clarify, there has been no change to initial result sets. Previously the page would load 50 at a time and the functionality has not changed with the new page.

Do you have an example you can share to demonstrate the limited views?  It's possible that you may have filters/refiners selected that would show fewer results.

Hi Michelle - here's a link to a search I created with a similar issue.  As I recall the old system gave the option (which I no longer see) of choosing 50, 100 or 250 results/page and would then give easy access to all pages of results.  On the link here if you want to see more than the first 50 results you have to scroll to the end of the page and click "50 more" and keep doing that for each additional 50 results.  That's a lot of scrolling and clicking to see all the results.  And I found that after opening a title page and then clicking the back button to return to the results, the system "forgot" all the previous "50 more" clicks I'd done and once again only showed the first 50.  Another user suggested I open a title in a new window or tab and that should work but it would be nice if the system could "remember" where I left off and take me back there instead of ground zero. He also showed me how to show more than 50 results by adding "&count=250" to the end of the url but with results in the thousands even having 250 on a page means a lot of scrolling and adding.  Thanks for looking into this - https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=feature,tv_series,short,tv_episode,tv_miniseries,tv_movie,tv_special,tv_short,video&user_rating=7,7&num_votes=527,

@Michelle I appreciate your response. In the old compact viewing option I was able to view much more titles on my screen without having to scroll compared to the new compact viewing option. I have attached the comparison.