Our fast new Yahoo! search

This is great news. Thank you very much.

I shall refrain from doing a multiple search on "Ben Stein" and "Evolution" lest I crash the engine on her maiden voyage.

Mr Ebert, why the 'exact title' requirement? I can't tell you how many times I've had to retype a title to find a review or even thought that you did not review a film because I did not type the exact title and no results came up for my search. Maybe you can have a phrase search for the reviews as well because sometimes I forget the name of a film but I remember something you said about it, however, I can't get back to the review because I've forgotten the title. For instance, I described a review in the blog the other day and you were able to provide the name "Ugetsu" for me.Thank you so much for that, though I have not been able to locate it as yet. Classics like that are not widely available in my country. I'll keep looking though.

Yes!! I'm glad to see the search works better! :)

After the captions contest, how about putting the search engine to use in a treasure hunt sort of thing? How many different ways Bill O'Reilly's name was mispelled, for example. :)

There is no search box in my upper left corner and the search function that is on the page is not working.

Ebert: The upper left corner of every page of rogerebert.com itself, not this blog. I wonder if there are blog visitors who don't know there's a main site!

Great!

I used to use the old search on the movie site a lot, but it seems to have been dying a slow death for some time now - this is much appreciated for that reason alone. Given the huge volume on the blog this will make it much easier to get around there and sift out the gems.

Thanks for taking good care of us!

Why no fuzzy search?

At last indeed. I've been having to go through Netflix to get to your reviews of movies.

Just tried it out, and it works fantastic! Exact phrases will take a little getting used to, but it's worlds better than the former problem of having it find nothing! The search is finally equal to the writer of the page!

I Google.

Thank heavens, finally! Your old search engine was execreble. I frequently had to just go to google and use the inurl: feature to bypass your search entirely.

Our capitalist overlords over at Google are not going to be pleased with this...

Some years ago I was stumble bumbling my way around Manhattan, a Texas lad hoping to meet up with some editors, and decided to visit St. Patrick's Cathedral. There was no service that hour...only the quiet interior and a few papal patrons like myself enjoying the stillness and a commune with a higher power.
I walked down the aisle and took a seat close to the altar near the front. There was no one around me. I sat there in silence. Minutes passed. Peace settled, welcome as a morning mist. Time may not have stood still but it sure became irrelevant.
I noticed something moving along the consecrated surface of the altar, it appeared to be crawling at first, or wriggling, I recognized a set of fingers, then a human hand, initially disembodied then becoming part of an arm. A few minutes later another hand and then an arm appeared followed by a ragggedy haired soul, his eyes red rimmed, wild looking, a scraggly beard resembling coils of barbed wire covering his lower features and trailed off across his tattered chest. This denizen of the mean streets struggled to focus on me, gave up that idea and oblivious to one and all, lifted his gaze heaven-ward and in a voice as raw with rage and pain as I have ever heard roared out, "WHY?!"
Then he melted down behind the altar, out of sight.
I had no answer.
But I remember his sermon to this day.

Ebert: You have written a short film.

No Google? (Yes, I'm a Google fanboy)

I am thrilled. The previous search through your reviews was very unreliable. Here's hoping that this one is much better.

Nothin' on upper left corner so far as I can see.

Ebert: Right under my photo, on www.rogerebert.com

Is the "advanced search" powered by Yahoo ? From the looks of it, it appears to take one to the old search engine page.

Also the search on the blog page does not seem to work !!

Ebert: Just worked great for me.

Alternative to :"advanced search:" On Google, type "ebert" and your search term or phrase.

Seeing that logo on your blog and I'm suddenly gripped with waves of nostalgia for Yahoo! Internet Life and your column. I don't think I've read a better magazine about the web since.

Ebert: Company bought by guys who looted it for cash and vamoosed. The magazine was always successful.

I Yahoo, therefore am.

Roger,

I use your site nearly every day. Many times I try to find reviews with my Blackberry, but am unable. Then, I usually search rotten tomatoes or the new york times to get a quick review.

Can we get this search to work on mobile phones?

Also, allow for fuzzy search on titles please! This helps, especially with foreign titles.

Thanks!

Ebert: The site has been maximized for cellular access via a browser. We are developing an iPod app.

For fuzzy search, just go to Google and type "Ebert" and your best guess at the title.

@ebert I thought so. The UK equivalent "Web User" seems to miss the point that YIL captured on nearly every page, even then, that the web is a community.

"I Yahoo, therefore am" (S.M. Rana)
Proof of Yahoo:
1. Yahoo is something of which nothing greater can be thought.
2. Yahoo may exist in the understanding.
3. It is greater to exist in reality and in the understanding than just in understanding.
4. Therefore, Yahoo exists in reality

FINALLY!!!

An iPod app would be the perfect, because when I'm at the theater, instead of watching the commercials for Mountain Dew or whatever, I can just read your articles instead.

Ebert: One is on the way.

Am I the only one who preferred the old search engine? I find the results page on the new Yahoo! search is far less helpful when looking for anything more than a few months old.

Case in point:

Just a moment ago I was trying to find your review of "Heat" ('95). I went to your main page, and in the search field under your picture I typed:

heat

and pressed enter.

Results page: first, some "Sponsored Results" directing me where to buy tickets for Miami basketball games and CDs of "boomin' island hits." But never mind; the ads are the price of doing business with the big boys. My real problem is that below these I found "Results 1-10 of 214", none of which was the review I was looking for--even though I had typed in the exact title. After clicking through the results ten at a time, I finally found the review on the sixteenth page.

On my travels through 150 irrelevant results, I noticed three things:
1.) The results were listed in reverse chronological order, with the ten most recent entries displayed on the first results page. (This is decidedly unhelpful when not searching for a recent review).
2.) The date for every result begins with 20__, so that when I finally found what I was looking for it said: Heat (2095) ***1/2
3.) Every result that is not an official "movie review" (including interviews, commentary, Answer Man responses, even Great Movie reviews) is given the ignominious designation "Zero Stars" (which I believe you reserve for immoral or nihilistic films). For such entries, of course, a star rating is meaningless, and maybe this is nit-picky on my part, but I found seeing "zero stars" after most of the hits distracting.

In the old days, that original search:

heat

would have taken me to a results page with "exact matches" for the title at the top, "partial matches" in the title immediately below that, and "movie reviews" containing a match within the full text at the bottom. The review I was looking for would have been the third hit (after Heat (1972) and Heat (1987)), which was much more convenient. If I wanted to search for relevant commentary or interviews as well, I could do so by using the advanced search.

I find that I can still get search results displayed in this format by using the "advanced search" feature, but... why should I have to? Obviously the content on your website is still tagged as "review", "people", "commentary", etc. because the advanced search feature is still in place.

Is is possible for your site's search feature to be powered by Yahoo! while still dividing the results into categories and displaying the most relevant content at the top of the page? If not, could someone at least fix the "zero stars" and "20__" bugs?

In the mean time, I will restrict myself to using the advanced search, since I find it is a much faster way to retrieve the content I want than wading through the Yahoo! search results.