The Week the Search Box Was Rewritten Twice
Shipped on the third attempt
What Was Attempted
The first version searched titles only. It was fast, it was simple, and it was wrong in a way that took a day to see: the archive is mostly bodies, not titles, and a reader looking for a phrase they half-remember is looking for a sentence, not a heading.
Why It Was Reverted
The second version searched everything, which meant a query for a common word returned most of the archive in no useful order. That is not a search result. That is a list.
It was reverted the same evening it shipped. Nothing was lost except the evening.
What Shipped Instead
The third version searches titles and bodies but ranks them differently, and it stops at a fixed number of results rather than paginating. Stopping is the part that took longest to accept: a search that admits it has run out is more honest than one that offers page eleven.
Changes
| Change | Surface | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Title-only index | Search | Reverted |
| Full-body index, unranked | Search | Reverted |
| Ranked, capped at a fixed count | Search | Shipped |
| Empty-state copy rewritten | Search | Shipped |
- Period
- One week, mid-cycle.
- Surface
- Search only. Nothing else was touched.
- Shipped
- Two of four attempted changes.
- Held back
- Filters. They were not the problem.