[Discontinued] YapMap Visual Search Custom Search Replacement
 

<font size="3">The YapMap Visual Search modification is no longer available. The YapMap search service has been discontinued until future notice.</font>

Sounded good, right up until I read on your web-site that there are adverts next to the results!

We actually don't show any ads right now. We're just hoping to get people to try out the tool. We simply reserve the right to show ads in the future.

Why? Because search is an expensive technical problem (we currently run systems combining more than 1 terabyte of RAM and 100 terabytes of redundant storage). At some point we have to make money to support our costs. If we do start showing ads, we'll split the advertising revenues similar to Google custom search. We would also let users know well ahead of time, if that time comes.

Thanks
Jacques

One clarifying point on the advertising issue: if you do not advertise on your forum then you can install YapMap Site Search and we will not place ads on the search results.

As Jacques said, we are not currently running ads, but in the future our plan is to support the service through unobtrusive and relevant text ads next to the search results. When we do start running ads we will also share a portion of this revenue with the forum owner.

We think this new search technology can really help users find and explore content on forums. And by exploring more content they are generating more page views.

We built the system to support even the largest forums and it is an easy mod to install - we do all of the heavy lifting on our end!

Thanks, Kevin
YapMap Team

Many thanks for taking the trouble to reply.

Unfortunately for me I run a small forum specifically for TV engineers, around 500 members at the moment. I thought this mod might be a help to them when searching. For some reason they always have trouble and never seem to find what they want despite me explaining * wildcard searches etc.....

I don't have adverts as such on the forum but I do offer paid options on the forum and that sort of thing. Perhaps you would look at www.television-magazine-forum.co.uk and from what you can see is that what you call advert free?

I appreciate what must be involved here and it has to be paid for but I know what the uproar would be like if I suddenly had adverts popping up and they would not possibly be relevant either to my members being a bit specialised.

Perhaps you might offer a paid for solution advert free at some point?

When I visited your test sites I was taken straight to the YapMap search but after looking around the sites I couldn't find the YapMap search again. What did I miss????

Forgot to ask, is this OK with VB 4.1.10?
I have no idea what 4.0.2 is

Hi Trevor, we are fully compatible with 4.1.10 release. It is OK if you are a smaller forum - go ahead and install and we can sort it out. I will PM you with details.

The reason we built YapMap is to solve the problem you are talking about. Searching threaded discussions is a very difficult search problem and to solve it we had to create a whole new way to index and display search results.

Thanks Kev
I received your email and will try installing the mod.

All installed now.

I did have some trouble on your site when registering etc. It took considerable time and said connecting for 20-30 seconds and needed the save button pushing a few times before it connected.

I seem to remember reading that it was possible to install the yapmap search and leave the existing one in place, is that indeed possible.

I will await the email to say the site has been crawled.

Hi

Any chance of adding the update history to this post and what the update did.
Two updates today?

I've added version history to the bottom of the original post.

Thanks,
Jacques

Many thanks, I have installed the latest version and emailed you.

Yes, it is possible to install YapMap Site Search in addition to other search functionality you might have on your site. Using YapMap with the VB advanced search is a good option.

I am sorry your registration was slow - we take latency very seriously. We just tested it and it looks to be running fine, if you keep having this issue please email me and we will look deeper into it. Thanks for the feedback.

Hi

I just logged in to my yapmap account and it took 50 seconds to log me in.

Instant response to selecting Edit but 60 seconds to complete after clicking Save edits.

I will try again tomorrow.

Are there any instructions on how to add this mod without removing the current search box?

Unfortunately, at this time we only support English language.
no arabic for now

I updated to the latest version and as a test just added the code as a widget before replacing my main search box.

Unfortunately the search does not seem to include a wildcard feature so will be of no use to me.

Most of my members will be searching for TV model numbers and as there are so many variants they will be searching with partial model numbers so;

Search for LE40C530F1 with the vb search and yapmap search both find the correct post.

Search for LE40C* with vb search and 6 results come back, 0 results with yapmap.

So unless there is a wildcard feature this will not work for me.
Which is a massive shame as it integrates perfectly with the forum and looks great.........

I also just noticed that the yapmap search results dates and times are totally wrong.
Year is coming back at 1970 plus day and time are wrong.

Thanks for the heads up on the date issue, we just fixed that bug and it is in the latest version.

As for the wildcard, you are correct, we do not support a wildcard in the query at this time. It is on our list of features but as most users aren't advanced enough to use a wildcard, it is down the list a ways. If others feel this is an important feature, please let me know and we will move it up the stack...

Hi
Thanks for the email.

I think you will find that the * used as a wildcard is very much used on the type of forum I run and indeed elsewhere.

I can't use the mod without it. Which is a big disappointment.

I would put that feature right up there near the top.

We are creating a list of languages to support. If you are interested in YapMap but your site is not in English, please send me a PM so we can properly prioritize our list.

Here is a thread of feedback about YapMap Site Search from our installation on Pitbull-chat.com: http://www.pitbull-chat.com/showthread.php?99477

So come on! What are you waiting for?? Give it a try - your users will love it! :-)

Can you provide me with the following, I'll be happy to give this a run.

1. Installation which will allow original search to be used as well as this search.
2. No search bar on forum home.

I have just attempted to send an email to the email in the original post, it has bounced. Do you have another?

Hi, I just checked and the email support@yapmap.com is working. Can you try and email me again on this address? You can also email me at: kevin@yapmap.com.

Thanks, Kevin

Just wondered if there is any news on the wildcard search feature?

If we install this on our site will it only search for content on our site? How long does it take to get our site indexed?

Anyone???????

Nothing, I installed this a week ago and I still have nor heard from them if they have indexed my site. Granted I have 300,000 posts to index but come on.

The guy has not been here in 3 weeks, this looks to be dead. Too bad!

Thought I would just check this again.
Developer has not been on since February...............

Shame, could have been good.
Never understand people that promote something and then disappear off the face of the earth.
Their web-site is still there but the last blog entry was January.......................

Weird.