Etsy Replaces Site Search Technology

[mandy]

This week we are replacing Etsy’s existing search technology with Solr, an industry-leading, open-source search system. Solr is currently in use by major consumer sites like Netflix as well as important e-commerce sites like Zappos.  We believe it will provide Etsy the foundation to scale in terms of both speed and functionality...

For this initial launch we primarily focused on improving the speed with which search results are returned on Etsy. We believe you’ll notice immediate and significantly faster results, though specific return times will vary based on your location and type of connection.

In addition to speed improvements, the Solr technology is smarter than our old search technology in how it handles certain queries. A specific improvement worth mentioning is the way in which the new system handles searches containing compound words...

Future phases of Search will include upgrades to the relevancy and ranking of the results. The way current search results are displayed (ranking) is based on chronology (most recently listed items first). We believe that Etsy buyers will be better served by a system that takes into account both ranking and relevance in a way that helps them find items they’re looking for according to various criteria by category.  And, for those buyers who may not know what they're looking for, we also hope to introduce later in 2009 tools to foster discovery based on all the hearting and curating that takes place across the Etsy community every day...

full announcement: http://www.etsy.com/storque/etsy-news/te...arch-3109/