
HNSearch – old HN search engine – will be shut down later today - talhof8
https://www.hnsearch.com/?
======
geerlingguy
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).

~~~
jaredsohn
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.

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

------
tptacek
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.

~~~
e15ctr0n
This should do the job:
[https://hn.algolia.io/#!/comment/forever/prefix/0/patio11](https://hn.algolia.io/#!/comment/forever/prefix/0/patio11)

~~~
redox_
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).

------
frou_dh
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.

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

~~~
frou_dh
Hey, thanks! They're there now.

~~~
redox_
You're welcome!

------
dictum
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.

------
Grue3
Shame, it was way better than the new one.

~~~
redox_
Thank you for this helpful feedback ...

~~~
OoTheNigerian
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!

~~~
redox_
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!

------
clamprecht
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.

~~~
swah
I noticed the new one is much faster..

------
Houshalter
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.

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

~~~
stefanobernardi
Algolia is also a YC company.

------
Curmudgel
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](http://imgur.com/asHzSb1)

------
codecondo
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.

------
swang
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

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

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

~~~
redox_
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...](http://hn.algolia.com/#!/all/forever/prefix/0/tptacek%20negotiation)

~~~
swang
Ah thanks! That must have been it.

------
notfoss
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

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

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

~~~
jaredsohn
[http://hn.algolia.com/api](http://hn.algolia.com/api)

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

~~~
talhof8
Yes, until about 40 days ago. I can't edit the title though.

------
sitkack
And [http://skimhn.com](http://skimhn.com) which hasn't been updating in
awhile will be even more not working.

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

------
pearjuice
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.

------
coldcode
Where do you get the entire HN database from?

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

~~~
nathancahill
Hook me up!

~~~
paulgb
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](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.)

------
Kiro
How do you sort by points in the new one?

~~~
ndessaigne
Sorting by points is the default

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

------
danielweber
Anyone have a mirror?

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

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

