Improving Relevance and Clarity of Search Result Snippets

[kouloumos]

In our current search system, when results are displayed, a snippet is shown by truncating the first 300 characters of the body or the AI-generated summary for that source. While this method provides a quick glimpse of the content, there are notable areas where it falls short in terms of relevance and user expectations:

1. Lack of Contextual Snippets: Unlike other search engines which dynamically display snippets highlighting the keywords or phrases searched by the user, our system merely shows the beginning of the document. This often fails to immediately provide the most relevant section of the text to the user.
2. Confusion Due to Summary Snippets: Our approach to prioritize summaries in search results can confuse users who, based on their experiences with other search engines, expect to see a snippet from the actual document rather than a summarized version.

Proposed Solutions

• Contextual Snippet Generation: To address the first issue, we need to research and possibly develop a method to extract snippets that specifically highlight the search terms within the context of the document. This approach ensures that the snippet shown is directly relevant to the user's query.
  • possible inspiration: how does stract does it?
• Clearer Summary Indication: For the second issue, while summaries are valuable for quick understanding, it's crucial to clearly indicate when a snippet is a summary rather than a direct excerpt. Alternatively, we could provide both—the relevant snippet and a button to view the summary. This dual approach would cater to both quick overviews and deeper context.
  • possible inspiration: all search engines have some extra options at the top right corner of the individual search result.

To see how we currently compare, you can review the difference in search result presentation across various platforms:

• Our current system: Bitcoin Search Result
• Other search engines: Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Stract.

Improving how we generate and present snippets will significantly enhance user experience by making search results more relevant and understandable, aligning with common user expectations and industry standards.