This page tries to capture some thinking around AMO search and default ordering of various lists on AMO. Also, how to produce better search results.

Relevant AMO Pages/Samples

• Featured Add-ons
• Category Recommended Add-ons
• Basic Search results page (natural)
• Advanced Search results page (natural, by popularity, ...)

To help inform this decision, here are the top 100 frequently searched for terms on AMO, http://pastebin.mozilla.org/490712.

• bug 439227 includes some suggestions on what a good natural order might be
• bug 291413 include number of ratings in the ranking
• bug 378657 exact names should sort first

Ordering Parameters

There is potentially a lot of data to work with to help order the list output. These include:

• Add-on Name/Title
• Description
• Rating
• Popularity (currently defined by number of weekly downloads)
• Downloads: All Time vs. This week
• Active Users: [scope]
• Application Compatibility & Compatibility Range
• Other fields (dev comments, etc...)

Basic search

Based on the most popular search terms seen above, we try to infer the intent of what is being searched for. (We may be wrong but we can at least guess the intent). It appears that searches cluster into the following categories:

• Exact Name, e.g. "firebug", "ie tab" - clearly users are looking for these named add-ons, so the algo should bias to display these at the top
• Functionality, e.g. weather
• Web site, e.g. google, gmail

see different types of basic searches being

• Use the "natural order" algorithm
• Do not use AMO ID sorting, it biases for longevity on the AMO site. Not necessarily on relevance.

Advanced search

• Some advanced search scenarios have been mapped out