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"while basic site search is simple (think adding a Google GOOG -1.13% site search toolbar to the top of your blog), good, effective site search is very, very hard"

What does the above statement mean? AND Why doesn't swiftype come up in techcrunch's autocomplete search?

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There are many factors that make high quality search difficult, but as an example, take relevance that evolves over time. Static text-based rankings are a fine start, but improving search relevance continuously based on usage takes a lot of data. Even when you have the data, leveraging it requires careful tuning to prevent issues like over-training. This is just one of the things we do for people out of the box.

"improving search relevance continuously based on usage takes a lot of data."

Is this usage based on where a user clicks after searching or based on actually studying usage of the site independent of your search results?

Both – interaction with the search results and general site usage data are important factors.

ok, so you guys track the clickstream & optimize for clicks that don't help the user. At a per site level i can see where the bottlenecks come in, but business must be good if those are your problems. Congrats!

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