Over the past two weeks, we’ve rolled out a new search backend. Refining our search system is an ongoing task, but this latest update represents a significant upgrade in terms of quality and features, so I wanted to highlight some of the notable changes. Keep in mind our search system is separate from our autocomplete system. The search results page is what appears after you type something in the search bar and submit it.

As a reminder, our search system is about finding things by name or title. If you’re looking to browse by category, we recommend using our browse pages and filtering by tag.

Better Text Matching, Higher Performance

The new service we’re using has much better support for various types of queries, including different languages and typo tolerance. It should now match substrings from your query in various new ways to help you find what you’re looking for. Those trying to find your game should have a substantially easier time doing so.

The system is substantially more performant than our old one. For this reason, we’re able to start indexing more fields related to each project page and provide more ways to find and filter pages.

Filtering Added

We’re now indexing the page type (games, assets, tabletop, etc.) with every indexed page. You can filter by these from the top of the search results page. We’ll likely add more filtering options in the future, but for now, this should satisfy the biggest complaint we received about not being able to find a particular type of item by name. For example, searching for Game Assets with “Cave” in their name.

Updated Fields Indexed for Games

We’ve changed what fields from game and project pages are used for indexing. The following is the list of fields that may match a user’s query in order of precedence:

1. Title (including any title aliases set by a site admin)
2. Project URL (if different from the title)
3. Creator’s name and any contributor names
4. Short description or tagline

The biggest changes here are that all contributor names contribute to a result, and the short description can be used for search terms.

Because we’re now indexing pages by their author names, we’ve temporarily removed the account search functionality from the search results page. We may revisit this in the future.

Jam Search Added

We’re now indexing all jams that are eligible for display. The indexing eligibility is the same as the eligibility for the jam browsing pages: The page must be published, the “Unlisted” option must be unchecked on the jam edit page, and new jam hosts will require human approval for their first jams. Example search, find all the GitHub Game Off jams.

Jam results can be filtered by their status, e.g., in progress, finished, upcoming, etc.

The fields used to index a jam are:

1. Title
2. URL (if different from title)
3. Names of hosts
4. The short description

Backend Processing

Our new search service runs independently of our primary database. For this reason, we now asynchronously index pages when changes are made by the creators. There may be a small delay between when a page is updated and when and how it appears in search results. Keep this in mind if you’re trying to test your project’s visibility and you just made changes to the page. You may want to check back in an hour or so if you don’t see what you expect.

Well done.

Might want to update now the help text inside the search box. "Search for games or creators".

And maybe consider a clarification at some places, that this box will not search tags. There are many threads in community where this is not understood: that there is a second search box that is a write in box with non fixed tags you can enter and filter with, in addition to the suggested tags. It also has misleadingly a help text, that reads: "Select a tag". I remember a heated discussion where someone did not understand that  (View all tags) is simply an untrue statement, if taken literall. It is all "suggested" tags. Not all tags. It is not an exhaustive list. It was months after first using itch that I realized that one can actually write in that drop down box, and not just as a quick select for the entries of that box. As a counterexample, the tags on Steam are exhaustive.

In other words, the search for example with "banana" will give different results than the tag browse page of "banana".

The search box results imply that it will deliver tags, if you happen to search for a suggested tag. Like "horror". It will spell out for you several horror tags. But if you search for banana, it will not notify you, that there is in fact a banana tag used by about 200 projects. Searching for banana will give the usual roundabout 60 projects and people make threads about not understanding, that search results are cut off, or complain why their game is not in the results. A simple note at bottom of search result might deal with that. (Reminding that those results are mostly literal title search and that there is an unlimited tag browsing available as well, and that results were cut off. Especially single word searches might have been an attempt to browse/search for a tag. Or a keyword - something neither search nor tag browsing can achieve, but some people might expect from a box called search.)

Community announcements are all good and well, but the vast majority just does not read here.

If you’re looking to browse by category, we recommend using our browse pages and filtering by tag.

Something like this I would imagine at top or bottom of the search results. Along with the info, that these results were capped and that full titles might be required to find what is searched.

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Oh, and try using a zoom level greater than 100% or a less than wide screen. The filter_label will flow over. I am surprised you did not use the same drop down box as seen on the browse page, to switch between games and assets.

Great job leafo

sounds great.

this isss sooooooooo greaaaattt  ,  thank you very much @leafo :) :) :)

This is such a step in the right direction, I have enjoyed the new features without noticing that they're new. Keep the good work!

Amazing changes, it has always been difficult to find the Game Jams or occasionally creators with the search bar. Thank you for the changes and looking forward to more changes.