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Creating "search" URL pages vs. "hashtag" URL pages pros & cons

Discussion in 'General' started by John Borst on Jan 15, 2021.

  1. John Borst

    By:John BorstJan 15, 2021
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    In doing a new custom page, I discovered something peculiar. We were making an overview page of the International Service Projects we support. For each, we have a link to each NGO's website but we also have a link to a page with all of the stories we have ever done over the years on our club's website.

    What I discovered was two different forms, one based on a search of the stories archive and the other based on a hashtag using tag words. A sample URL is https://drydenrotary.org/search/Amarok (or the search term with hyphens if more than one word) verses using the tag which produces this URL https://drydenrotary.org/stories#Bangladesh.

    The advantage of the hashtag is that the items appear as they do in the stories archive listing. Using the search URL there are no pictures and the search word is highlighted in yellow.

    Screenshot (2463).png

    Screenshot (2462).png

    What this tells me is to use the hashtags with more thought to the future so that I can quickly lead viewers to other stories although both systems work well. Why however does a search term generate a list with no thumbnail picture when if you use a search term on the Stories archive page they are listed with thumbnail pictures?

    There is always something new to discover about ClubRunner no matter how long you have worked with it.
     
  2. John Borst

    By:John BorstJan 18, 2021
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    Here is Zach's answer to the above questions from an inquiry I sent him. I think it is important for all CRC members.

    "Q1. Ironically, having no thumbnail picture in the News widget for the Home Page is currently to my advantage. I want to make the most recent story feature a large inviting picture and elsewhere at ClubRunnerCommunity.com I have suggested a new News widget feature which would take the thumbnail and place it from the left side into the centre at full-width scale with the title and intro sentence and then when not there reverts back to the left thumbnail when in the News Stories and Archives widget. Could you pass that idea on to the development team, please?

    A1. Always happy to share feedback with our team on the platform as a whole, and have done so on this matter!

    Q2. What this tells me is to use the hashtags with more thought to the future so that I can quickly lead viewers to other stories although both systems work. Why however does a search term generate a list with no thumbnail picture when if you use a search term on the Stories archive page they are listed with thumbnail pictures?

    A2. You are comparing two very different searching features.

    The dedicated search system is searching based on the content of the page and returning to you a "clean" version of the text as search results. We cannot safely return the content of all pages with all of its HTML formatting, so the search results only return the text itself.

    On the stories listing page, you are not doing a "real" search, but filtering the live data on the page for only the specific items you are looking for. The stories on this page are already formatted for their display, so the filter is just showing you the matching details.

    So in short, think of the search page itself like a lite version of Google search for your website. The results will not be the full content of the page, but a summary/snippet. Whereas the story search is filtering out unwanted data, from the data that could already be displayed on the page.

    I hope that helps!
     
  3. Zach

    By:ZachJan 18, 2021
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    I was working to reply here as well, glad you were able to share this with the community! Please let me know if there is anything else.
     
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