HNSearch – old HN search engine – will be shut down later today | Hacker News Reader

HNSearch – old HN search engine – will be shut down later today

hnsearch.com

86 pointstalhof859 comments

Any reason why the old domain couldn't continue to be a wrapper around the new engine/interface? hnsearch.com sounds more trustworthy to me (and has been around a lot longer) than algolia. (This is coming from a long-time lurker, never been into the YC scene much, so I've never heard of algolia).

I have the exact same question. I can remember hnsearch better than algolia and it is easier to spell in my opinion.

Also, now I presumably have to change the code of my app which uses the API.

Yeah, the API is different (but I feel it is overall better and they've been responsive to inquiries on github https://github.com/algolia/hn-search).

Technically, you likely would have had to change your code a month ago or so. From what I can tell, hnsearch hasn't had its content updated in the past month.

Edit: Fixed URL. Apparently if you include the period inside the parentheses right after a link (which is incorrect if it isn't its own sentence), Hacker News includes it as a part of the URL.

My app is still a prototype. It's online, but not officially launched. So I didn't notice the missing results yet.

You've got an extra dot. Here https://github.com/algolia/hn-search

If the domain name doesn't get forwarded over, you can also find the search engine at the bottom of the Hacker News main page.

I am going to use the search bar then, thank you!

Comments pages too.

Probably an SEO/branding move for Algolia.

SEO & Branding are typically opposite goals.

Seems like it might be something where they want to branch out from just HN.

I highly doubt they are "branching out" from just HN. Obviously Algolia existed prior to replacing hnsearch (they were already in YC), but taking it over gives them more visibility within the startup community and also frees up responsibility for Octopart.

Yes, we already existed before operating the new HN search. We did it as a way to participate to the community and of course it's good for our visibility. The hnsearch.com domain is the property of Octopart, not ours.

I'm generally happy with the new search. It's faster.

One nit: IIRC, the old engine supported vanity searches - you could search author:-patio11 to find comments mentioning patio11 not written by patio11.

This should do the job: https://hn.algolia.io/#!/comment/forever/prefix/0/patio11

Sorted by date, that just gives me a list of patio11 comments (with our patio11 mentions at the top).

Not exactly, tptacek is right; there is no simple way to find all items containing "patio11" not being written by "patio11" (both the text and the author name are indexed). Handling the "NOT" operator is pretty tricky as soon as you want to retrieve relevant results from the first keystroke in a few milliseconds (your query can match all documents).

The new search doesn't appear to present any filtering or sorting options, at least on mobile. This surely can't be right. The old HNSearch with its quick toggles for submission/comment and date/points was extremely effective.

You're right, the sorting options are currently hidden on mobile. We need to work on having a mobile-compliant filtering/sorting menu.

Hey, thanks! They're there now.

You're welcome!

I wish the Algolia HN Search had a better coverage of older submissions and replies. Finding stuff that's older than 3 years is pretty hard on the new search.

Shame, it was way better than the new one.

Thank you for this helpful feedback ...

You know, instead of being sarcastic, you could attempt to find out why the user things so.

As an executive of Agolia, you have just wasted a learning opportunity.

FWIW, I liked HN search because of it's sorting ability. By date, points and how it combined with the filter comment only, story and heading.

Cheers!

1 point for you :) That being said, we're all very open to any discussion about a missing feature. We've already added a few ones and have even open-sourced the code: we're definitely motivated to provide the best HN search engine to the community. Cheers!

It's my impression that quoted phrases dont work? It's also in general less explicit than the previous one, 'looser' quering.

I personally hate that, is the same road google has taken the last months.

Can someone outline the benefits of the new one over the old one? When I first tried the new one, the UI was severely lacking. I saw the fixed a few things, but I haven't evaluated it again.

I don't always use the HN search engine, but when I do, it's usually very helpful. I'd hate to lose that.

I noticed the new one is much faster..

This sucks. The new search engine doesn't have the "sort by" feature. It also doesn't support "AND", and "OR", which is really disappointing.

Only a minor inconvenience, but now I have to use several separate bookmarks to search for every keyword I am interested in.

Also, I'm curious why Swiftype (a YC company) isn't powering HN's search. Anyone care to comment?

Here's a comment.

Algolia is also a YC company.

The search results for stories show both the long (and useless) news.ycombinator URL and a link to the comments. Both links lead to the same location. The news.ycombinator URL displayed is redundant and adds visual noise. I've highlighted both links in the image linked to below.

I'd like it if the results showed "link", "parent", and "on $News_Story", like the old site did.

http://imgur.com/asHzSb1

I've have had the Algolia link bookmarked for a while now, I really love what these guys are doing, and the search results are just out of this world.

I hope the new search engine will eventually get the same index as the old one

I was searching for some articles where the old search would get me lots of results that the new search would not return. So I'm hoping that's an indexing issue rather than a quality of the new search engine issue

The new index should contain the same items. Can you provide the queries?

The search query was "tptacek negotiation" the new search could not find the comments from tptacek about negotiations.

I think you were filtering on "Story" only, right? By checking "All" or "Comment", you'll find the comments.

http://hn.algolia.com/#!/all/forever/prefix/0/tptacek%20nego...

Ah thanks! That must have been it.

I rarely use the search function of Hacker News, but at a quick glance, the new search does look better.

Good:

1. The number of points and age of the stories are highlighted.

2. Thumbnails are a nice addition.

3. It looks less cluttered than the old search.

Bad:

1. Very dull font color for most things except the story title.

2. I had to enable two new domains in NoScript :P

HNSearch let you search users' "about" sections. How would one search users' profiles on the new search engine?

I had an app that used the json output from HNSearch. Are you guys going to enable that?

http://hn.algolia.com/api

This "old HN search engine" was in use until relatively recently, right?

Yes, until about 40 days ago. I can't edit the title though.

And http://skimhn.com which hasn't been updating in awhile will be even more not working.

Several apps based on legacy HNSearch's API have already moved to the new one.

Can the old engine be open sourced at least so it can be implemented in the new version? A lot of the syntax is missing in the Algolio thing.

Where do you get the entire HN database from?

We're getting all items from an internal HN API.

Hook me up!

The internal API is presumably for YC companies/alum who arrange special access (HNsearch was powered by ThriftDB, another YC alum). Why not just use Algolia's API? http://hn.algolia.com/api

(Even before HNsearch, there was another YC company that served as the official search for HN for a short period. Can't remember the name now though.)

How do you sort by points in the new one?

Sorting by points is the default

can you guys reuse the same domain name? algolia is blocked from our company :P

Anyone have a mirror?

Maintaining an up-to-date search engine is more than just having a mirror. Have you identified a specific missing feature?

I was looking for the text on the site. It's been up-and-down for me today. Currently down.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com