Smart Search Not So Smart

There was a verse in 2 Timothy 2:10 that talks about the "salvation which is in Christ." Well, I typed salvation which is in Christ and it gave me other verses except 2 Timothy 2:10, but when I switched to "Precise Search" I didn't even put the quotation marks, I just typed salvation which is in Christ and the first Bible reference that popped up in the results was exactly the one I was looking for.

Any ideas why this happened? I mean, the quote is pretty obvious and both searches should've been able to find what I was looking for. Just something to maybe look into or not. I'm not sure what to make of it to be honest.

Thanks!

DAL

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Comments

MJ. Smith

Unfortunately, I find the behavior to be pretty much what I would expect. Precise looks for the precise wording; smart looks for things with a meaning somewhere round what is asked for … there is no reason to think that when it is doing a search it knows the words it was fed - it knows the meaning it was fed.

DMB

Just looking at the one example (and remembering the 'smart' is after the search routine?), I'd assume the 'precise' has been optimized for phrase-first, while the 'smart' pre-search is optimizing the word uniqueness first. But obviously guessing.

My guess is eventually they're going to have to deal with the search being smart (with false matches).

Jerry T

Interesting! I've seen this myself when trying to find an exact phrase using smart search.

I have found that if I can add a little detail it helps. For example, in your particular search if you add "Paul speaking," 2 Tim 2:10 was the first hit. Or even adding "in the New Testament" brought it up as the fifth hit.

I know sometimes we don't have the luxury of remembering extra information to feed the search but thought I would throw that out there.

DAL

Well it works well with other phrases like God so loved the world, so you would think the actual phrase would give you the number 1 reference you’re looking for. It also works for Christ died for the ungodly. So there must be something that separates the phrase salvation which is in Christ from these and other phrases. The verse I’m looking for appears first for most other phrases except for the one in 2 Timothy 2:10. Weird!

DAL