Search Engine Etiquette (was: [thelist] i think I hurt Google....)

[Chris Marsh]

> > if you search for nothing, that is exactly what you get...;) lol
> >- Kevin
>
> Truly though, if you search for nothing, should you get
> nothing, or everything? Searching for nothing and getting
> everything in my mind is from a customers stand point is they
> have no idea what to look for or what product x's real name
> is. hmmm...
>
> Thoughts?

Whenever I've built search facilities I have treated an empty search as
an error, not returning any results but rather a message along the lines
of "You must enter a search criterion". A search for a match on ""
returning no results has no practical merit. If it is practical to
return all records (not, in the case of a search engine or large product
database) a separate option to list all records should be given as this
is not technically a "search".

My $0.02...

Regards

Chris Marsh