Accordance Store search limitations

[Kristin]

This is actually concerning the Accordance store website.

 

The way the search function is set up, you either type it in EXACTLY or it will find no results. It happens a lot where I type in the name of an author and there are no hits, even though I own stuff by such author. Likewise with titles, where I know it exists since I own it.

 

For example, if I search for "NIV with enhanced" it says "Sorry, no results."

 

So I try, "NIV with enhanced G/K Numbers" you guessed it, "Sorry, no results."

 

Even "NIV 2011 with enhanced G/K Numbers" returns "Sorry, no results."

 

In my Library it is listed as "NIV (2011) WITH ENHANCED G/K NUMBERS" so I copied and pasted "NIV (2011) WITH ENHANCED G/K NUMBERS" and "Sorry, no results.

 

So now I just search for NIV and it brings up a bunch of texts, and it appears that the name was changed from "NIV (2011) WITH ENHANCED G/K NUMBERS" (as shown in my Accordance Library) to "NIV New International Version 2011 with G/K numbers"

 

My suggestion would be thus:

 

If someone types in "NIV enhanced" that it says "No exact hits. You may be interested in NIV (2011) WITH ENHANCED G/K NUMBERS"

 

This is just one of MANY examples. I can pretty much guarantee there are people who wanted to buy something Accordance has, but did not since their search result claimed Accordance does not have it.

 

Thank you for looking into this.

Kristin

[cweber]

This problem is so common that I often first search Google before Accordance and use the results to open within the Accordance website

[cweber]

A lecturer at the Bible school my brother attends demonstrated to his class using Google to first find what the student is interested in and with that refined search results then use Research in Accordance. Not the same Accordance Website concern you raised, but search in either is a known concern. I think the struggle for a small company is paying a service like Google and making their data available to them to on-sell as apposed to writing their own search engine.

 

 

Edited October 1, 2022 by cweber

[Michael Hunt]

I suspect the issue is with what database field the webpage search is using, and if, with more than one term it searches using exact hits vs fuzzy.

 

My search the other day for "Ross Psalms" (eg Author, Topic/Word) returned no hits but "Ross" on its own got me multiple hits. The title I was searching for was third on the list.

 

This is not rocket science and I expect many people treat the site search in the same way as they would a Google search. It's kind of surprising given what it is that OakTree produce (a powerful search tool for biblical resources). There should be any easy fix in their CMS but it could make your average user think their are not many titles carried by Accordance.

 

P.S. Having worked with multiple backend CMS for websites over the years I get why Accordance upgraded when they found the old website no longer fit for purpose. That said the implementation of rolling it out didn't pan out for users like myself with some issues that have been raised for quite sometime yet to be fixed. 

[cweber]

It is a shame we see no indication of tokenising words, it works very well in full text search queries on databases supporting this.

[Daniel L]

I dread having to search for a product on the Accordance website. Here are some tips:

1. It seems that the fewer search words you use, the better. Of course, this can lead to a lot of results. So...
2. I've found that searching by author name is better than searching by title.
3. Use the most distinctive word or author name (if the work has multiple authors).
4. Best tip: Use Brave Search, restricting results to the Accordance website domain, like this:

niv site:accordancebible.com

Search results: https://search.brave.com/search?q=niv+site%3Aaccordancebible.com

[Lawrence]

You can use Daniel's idea with Google as well.

Enter the search string, followed by "site:accordancebible.com" (you can leave out the quotes).

 

In your example, you can search in google using the following search string:

• NIV with enhanced site:accordancebible.com

[A. Smith]

Re module names, YES. The inconsistency and multiplicity of names for modules is a challenge. This is the case nor only for the store but also the library, parallel text picker, display name, and others. I understand the need for truncated titles. But it would be great if somehow both were included for searching in the apps and the store. Idk what’s involved in that, but it would help ease a lot of frustration. 

 

I find the best way to search accordance store is to type slowly and yet the auto fill suggestions lead the way. For me, it’s like searching a lexicon or dictionary in the macOS app. I don’t always know exactly what it’s called, but I begin typing and what I’m looking for is usually not far down the list of suggestions. Different topic, but I wish this search field suggestion feature worked for iOS and iPadOS. 

[Daniel L]

On 10/4/2022 at 3:37 AM, Lawrence said:

You can use Daniel's idea with Google as well.

 

I wrote my idea intentionally not mentioning Google. People need to avoid technocratic ☠ Big Tech companies as much as possible. They are not your friend.