Smart Search Improvements

Mark Barnes (Logos) · 2025-04-29T19:03:16+00:00

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A few weeks ago, we quietly released an update to the Smart Search index that improved its ability to retrieve the most relevant results. (In our internal testing, it was about 15% more accurate.)

The new version improves two things in particular:

First, Smart Search is now much better at finding identical concepts that use different spellings. British versus American spelling shouldn't be a problem now, nor differences like epectasis versus epektasis.

More importantly, Smart Search is also much better at determining what the most important words in a query are. Before these improvements, Smart Search was particularly poor with queries such as "What does the Bible say about X?", as you can see from this screenshot: (forgive the morbid topic — but it came up in our tests as a query that particularly benefited from the changes).

With the improvements, you'll see the Smart Search is doing a much better job of figuring out what really matters from your query.

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Comments

Antony Brennan

@Mark Barnes (Logos)

Thanks Mark

Michelle

This is amazing, I like how it now knows to search for "actual topic" 🤩 great improvement! Big applause to the whole team involved!

Carmen Gauvin-O'Donnell

Oh wow, that IS much better, thanks!

DAL

I spent 30 minutes on the web store looking for a recent book release but couldn’t remember the title. I did remember a quote from the book and used Smart Search All Books and it found the book on the store. When I finally found it, I was able to purchase it for a future lesson I’m working on.

One quick solution to prevent this from happening again is to put an interesting book on my wishlist so I can easily retrieve it and look at the preview again.

BUT, it seems kind of pointless now that they have removed the table of contents from the book previews on the website.

@Mark Barnes, if you read this, please, bring back the detailed table of contents preview we used to have and which you used to recommend a lot too! A detailed TOC is crucial when trying to decide if I want to buy a book or not.

DAL

Allen Browne

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1368287#Comment_1368287

DAL said:

Yes pleased, Mark Barnes. No longer having the TOC available when viewing a book on the Logos Website (under "See inside") has stopped me buying some books.

DAL

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1368316#Comment_1368316

Not to mention the fact that the books I just bought I bought them because I had managed to check out the detailed ToC, if I hadn’t done that last week I definitely wouldn’t have purchased anything.

No ToC equals to blind shopping and just hoping for the best. I’m sure the returns will be more now and then they’ll get other weird ideas and then only God knows what could happen in the near future!

Russell W. Alford

@Mark Barnes (Logos)
Much better thanks Mark Barnes and Team.

NichtnurBibelleser

I recently found out that searching my library for the German version of a person's name yields much less hits than the English version.

Is this the case also with Smart Search? I tried that but I can't tell from the results.

Doug Yates

@Mark Barnes (Logos) , nice to see these improvements. I know your intent was not to highlight any particular topic and it is unrealistic for Smart Search to pick up everything. A few other references come to mind that might have been appropriate answers:

John jumping in the womb
Jesus telling us to come like little children
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you
Moses and Jesus being saved from infanticide
The scientific basis for when life starts to form, and thou not shalt kill in the Ten Commandments

There may be others references that are applicable, but these came to mind for me.

Celeste Fiorillo

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1368287#Comment_1368287

Thanks for your feedback, we've added the ToC back to See Inside.

DAL

Thank you, Celeste and thank you to the team also!

DAL