Using Typesense search engine on your site
what is site search and how does typesense help you improve it
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image credits: aviyel
If you were born or have lived in the 21st century you’ve probably heard of search engines and seen how they’ve changed the world. According to statistics , 81% of people search online for a product, service, or random fact each day. So search engines are a big deal for the millennial generation. In this post, we are going to be talking about Typesense and why you should use it as your website’s default search engine.
Before we get to why you should use Typesense on your site, let’s get started with what Typesense is, so you can fully appreciate the beauty of the Typesense search engine.
What is Typesense
image credits: aviyel
Typesense is an open source, typo-tolerant search engine that delivers fast and relevant results. It was built from scratch using C++ to provide a clean and fast user experience. If you are just hearing about open source for the first time, open source is simply a concept where code for a project is made public so any programmer, anywhere in the world can contribute code to it. You can know more about open source here. In simple words, Typesense is built to provide a clean and seamless search experience and is continuously updated by developers all around the world every other day. To fully understand why you should use Typesense as your website’s default search engine let us first know what the term site search means.
What is Site Search
Site search is a functionality that enables the user to find specific content on a website or web app in an efficient manner. In simpler terms, site search is simply the functionality that allows a user to get specific information from a website or web app. In the modern-day, site search has really become an essential part of every content/information provider. As per statistics, 30% of visitors use a search box when one is offered. You see and use site search on all the big websites, be it searching products on Amazon, or finding friends on Facebook.
How does Typesense Ensure Smooth Site Search?
image credits: aviyel
Open Source
Like I said earlier Typesense is open source so hereby the code for the search engine is made available for developers across the globe. The good thing about open source software is the fact that it is built with efficiency in mind because it is continuously worked on by developers around the world, making the code consequently dependable. Ever heard of the phrase Two heads are better than one, well imagine having every developer’s head in the world having access to the Typesense code base. Imagine how efficient and optimized it would be, not to mention the fact that open source actually gives developers the chance to fashion the code to their specific requirements. Typesenses is optimized by developers from five continents, making it one of the seamless search engines for you to perform your site search.
Hassle-Free Integration
One of the coolest things about Typesense is the fact that it can easily be integrated into any tool. As software developers, one of the biggest issues we face with any software is integration with other tools. But Typesense solves it all. You can seamlessly integrate Typesense with tools like JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Linux, MacosX etc. This improves the efficiency of the developer and helps them provide quality code to enhance the user experience.
Incredible Search Speed
Typesense was built in C++, a compiled language with very low latency, which is exactly what you need in a search engine. One of the undeniable core components of a search engine is speed, you wouldn’t want your user to have to wait for 5 minutes to get what he or she searched for, right? In this current fast-paced world that would be equal to self-sabotage so you want your users’ results to be returned to them quickly. Typesense was built for speed as it was written in C++ with fast runtime, thanks to its error-free compilation and regular debugging. So, for super-fast search speed, head over to Typesense.
Typo-Tolerant
We’ve all undoubtedly had the experience where we went on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, looking for a friend or a celebrity (yep, we all stalk), but the search results seemed to offer a different individual. And then when we realize we spelt the name wrong (🤦♂️tough I know)! Typesense is built to handle the typographical errors we make during a search. This makes it easy for users to focus on the items they are searching for rather than having to spell right.
image credits: aviyel
Great Documentation
Every developer knows how important documentation is for any project. Documentation can make or break your project. A project could be excellent but unused simply because no one knows how to use it. Typesense has developer-friendly documentation for even beginners to get the hang of it. Check out the documentation here ! Their documentation site is also open source. If you are a developer looking to make some chunks of contribution to open source, this is your chance.
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