Search problem in Products & Sources

I continue to have problems with searches. It's the only negative thing I know about Dave's Garden. I was in the Plant Scout and entered "Harrison's Yellow" rose. I got "no exact matches, but here are some close matches." So I removed "rose." Same "no exact," but now only 862 (!!!!!). The thing is, there was an entry for "rosa Harrison's Yellow" at High Country Roses on about the second page.

The lists have no apparent order, certainly not alphabetical by plant or company.

Most of the entries were not roses and did not have "yellow" in the name.

And!!! I went back to re-do the steps to be sure I was writing this correctly, and can't find the Harrison's Yellow entry in the first few pages. I guess I just lucked out that it was high enough up for me to see. I know I wasn't imagining things, because I made an order by clicking "purchase."

Even if I'm doing something wrong, and can learn to get smaller results, it's not nice to have normal search techniques work this way. I've posted similar questions/complaints about other search spots on the website.

In every other way Dave's Garden is beyond nice. It's wonderful.

Thanks,

LAS14

I have to agree, searching in Plant Scout has not been very helpful for me. For your search I tried entering just "harrison" and it did come up with "Rosa harrisonii", sold at Forest Farm (along with only one other entry). Probably would have better luck just searching with Google.

Sandy

Not to say that the search couldn't use some improvement, but in this particular case, I think the issue was your spelling (either that or Plant Files has it spelled wrong). It's actually listed in there as 'Harison's Yellow' with one r. When I type Rosa Harison's Yellow into the Plant Scout search (or do the same thing with rose instead of Rosa), the entry for Harison's Yellow comes up as the first one in the list. http://davesgarden.com/products/ps/search.php?search_text=Rosa+Harison%27s+Yellow&submit=Search

That's interesting, Country Roses has it with one "r", Forest Farm has it with two.

A forgiving search engine is a thing to behold and cherish - and it's far harder to create than it might appear. (A bit like watching an Olympic athlete - they execute their sport with such ease and grace, it looks deceptively easy until we try to mimic their actions.)

That said, a better search engine is high on the list of "needs and wants."

Helpmefind lists the rose under many optional names and spellings, but indicates its registered name is 'Harison's Yellow', which agrees with the spelling we list, along with various synonyms. Unfortunately, the PlantScout search engine isn't picking up the aka's.

I was just about ready to suggest that, as a start, your searches honor quotation marks. Something like "early yellow" gets every item with yellow in the name or description. But I just now stumbled onto the fact that it does honor single quotes. That's a biggie. But it's not clearly stated anywhere. Can't the engines be rather easily modified to handle double as well as single quotes?

Or, minimally, put "single quotes required" somewhere obvious?

tia
las

P.S. Just discovered that "plant files" doesn't honor either kind of quote. Hopeless to try to find "early yellow lily." "Early Yellow" is the cultivar name.

This message was edited Feb 15, 2010 3:58 PM

How about this? http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/adv_search.php?searcher[common]=&searcher[family]=&searcher[genus]=&searcher[species]=&searcher[cultivar]=early+yellow&searcher[hybridizer]=&searcher[grex]=&search_prefs[blank_cultivar]=&search_prefs[sort_by]=rating&images_prefs=both&Search=Search

Well, that's helpful. But if the cultivar is there, why did it say it's not found when I put it in my seed trade last as something I wanted?

Did you enter it just as it is entered there? The beautiful (and tricky) thing about databases is that you have to match the fields exactly.

The easiest way to get your plant/seed tradelist to match PlantFiles (and link to it, so your trades are displayed) is to use the "add to your tradelist" feature within any listing. Just scroll down and you'll see a link to add it to your tradelist that way. And you'll know that everything matches up exactly.

What I find a bit frustrating, especially as I was first trying to figure out the PF search engine, is that it works very differently than other search engines, especially the ones which I think many people use most, eBay's and Google's. For example, on eBay's engine, the search engine only brings up items which contain all the words in the search. More words in the description, the fewer the number of items come up. Likewise the fewer the words the greater the number of items come up. This is just the opposite with the PF engine, which pulls up every item containing any of the words. Took me a while to get used to that.

So Terry, looks like her entry, the second one in your PF post above, is a duplicate.

Terry, is there a list somewhere of the vendors that are on Plant Scout?

Within the PlantScout main page: http://davesgarden.com/products/ps/ you'll see links to browse the vendors, listed alphabetically. Or you can click on All to see all of them: http://davesgarden.com/products/ps/vbl/ALL/

Well, duh! Sorry I didn't see that myself!

Sandy

No problem - we pack a lot of stuff on each page, so unless you know it's there OR exactly where to look, it's easy to miss stuff. We're always here to help point you in the right direction ;o)

I've heard that some vendors are using Google's search. I have no idea how this works, or how expensive it might be. Has this been explored?

TIA
LAS

We have used Google's search engine from time to time. It has some pros and cons. I think there are some solutions out there, and I'm eager to hear what IB's technical resources are contemplating ;o)

Thanks, but who/what is IB?

Sorry - Internet Brands (aka IB) is our new parent company.

I haven't read all of the posts above, but enough to get the gist of this because I have been asking for the search engine to be fixed for a long time.

But, google is able to come up with different spellings etc. Haven't you ever entered something, only to have it come back and offer you a different way to spell it?

I know there are limits to that, but also would like to say that when you google a plant you often get the plantfiles on DG as a first option. :o)

However, I find that there are sometimes better and more information about a plant on google because the plantfiles on DG are only as good as what the user has posted. The same can be said about the entries on google. However, they are a different type of user. Normally a vendor.

That is exactly right Terry. Sometimes I wish that the plantfiles asked for different types of information. Maybe a different format Kind of nailing the poster down to spit it out. So many of them only put their pictures in there and very little information.

Which brings up the question... how does one add addditional information? Other than 'add a comment', 'file an error report', or 'add another plant', what options are there? How does one add a "detail", which I see many members have done so, but don't see that option for me?

If nobody has added any information at all to a particular section (like hardiness for example), then you will see a link to add details (it'll say Unknown--tell us). But if someone has entered something, even if they left it incomplete (maybe they just checked off zone 5a and the plant is hardy everywhere from 5a-8b) then you won't see that link. If you run across things like that where some info has been added but it's wrong or incomplete, you can use the "report an error" button to let the PF admins know what the correct entry should be for that particular section (it probably also helps to include references/rationale for why you think your info is more correct than what's in there now unless it's a really blatantly obvious error).

Here's an example of a PF entry that shows this--notice that a couple of the sections list "unknown tell us" while others have some information in them and don't have that link http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/188872/

Thanks e... now that you mention it, I have seen that option on occassion. Guess I never paid much attention to it at the time. Still learning.

Ok rockgardner, now that you are learning we expect great things to appear in the plantfiles from you.

One step at a time Jnette... but it is my goal!

Now if I could only remember the entry in PF that I wanted to add info to (because I felt existing info was incomplete) but I didn't know how! I considered the "report an error" link but it didn't seem appropriate. Maybe we could define that link a little better so members, esp. newbies, will know it can also be used for adding additional details to the existing details?

Touche, Terry. LOL

LOL. I'm lurking here and enjoying the posts but have become a little confused. With me that isn't very difficult I'm afraid. Anyhow just to double check that I understand and am doing this correctly (and so that I can 're-confuse' anyone who now thinks they understand), when you mention filling in notes about personal experiences with plants, you are referring to the 'Comments' or "Gardener's Notes" section right?

In the past people have asked me to contribute my personal experiences. That's where I put them. I just wanted to be sure I'm actually doing it right.

DOS, glad you came out of the weeds. LOL, I guess what I am saying is that I think the format should be changed so it is asking for definite answers rather than leaving it up to the poster to write all the information in the comments section.

When I read the comments posted there I come away with more questions than I had to begin with. And, wouldn't you know, I am at a loss right now for examples. LOL

Thank you, Terry,

I know, even as I was trying to form the question, it sounded obvious.

But, I just had to ask because somewhere in following the thread I got confused or at least uncertain. It doesn't even make a whole lot of sense to me either, but, again, I just had to be sure.

I'll just go back to lurking quietly now. : )

If you were wondering, I guarantee a lot of others were/are, too. So thank you for having the courage to ask!

LOL, Terry, now that is the grace of which I spoke earlier!
You are most welcome. (smiling)

I put in the search pom pom got 1163 hits, first page was such a miss & mash of incredibly unrelated material I gave up...who would have ever thought a citrus was considered a pom pom? NOT

FlaFlower, do you realize you jumped 5 years with one post? Do you feel 5 years older? Amazing. Where else could you do that? Only on DG I am sure. :o)

Speaking of Plant Files, I really do not like the new version. I just use Google instead. Too bad. I used to use it all the time. Oh well, probably just me.

Jnette, we didn't change the PlantFiles search in this first set of updates. Give us a little time - more improvements are coming.

Ok, Thanks Terry, hope they are useable. LOL, is that a word? Jeanette

yes, it's a word. And yes, they will be very useable - and useful :-)