RE: Amazon Access

>I would expect to get the same search results no matter which front-end

>I used (since Amazon is largely a database driven website), but this 
>seems not to be the case.

It looks like the search algorithm used by both the graphical Amazon and
the 'access' Amazon are exactly the same. 

A search for "Accessibility" on either brings back two sets of results:
a set of three 'Most Popular Results' as well as a full set of 181
results for the keyword. 

You can see this on the graphical Amazon by clicking "See all 181
results" next to "Books:" after running your initial search. The page
you're taken to will show 3 "Most popular results for Accessibility"
(which match the first 3 you see on Amazon.com/access) and below that a
full indexed list of the 181 results.

This list of 181 is the same you see (in the same order) when you click
"More results" on the first Amazon.com/access results page.

So the only difference is that on the graphical side, the first page you
see (the one that shows matches in a variety of categories) shows the
top 3 results of the full list of 181, not the Most Popular Results.
Once you focus your search within a category, it's exactly the same.

You can see this by changing the setting of the category dropdown
selection from "All Products" to "Books" on both sites before typing in
"Accessibility" - you'll get the same results.

Received on Monday, 24 February 2003 12:20:29 UTC