houzzsupport For an exact match, you can search for "glass backsplash" (in double quotes).
To search for all spaces that include both words, search for: +glass +backsplash

endora I searched photos "fireplace mantle". But it seems if someone merely writes the words fireplace mantle somewhere in a description of their work (mouldings, a ceiling medallion, and fireplace mantles throughout the house had managed... levels. Recessed metal reveals encircle the perimeter of preserved fireplace mantles... TURETT COLLABORATIVE ARCHITECTS I'm lookin' at you) any kind of photo will come up. I just slogged through 5 pages of their stuff and only saw one fireplace! It's rather off putting.

How many fireplace mantles do you see on this page?

http://www.houzz.com/%22fireplace-mantle%22/p/16

Gary Yue Hi endora, thank you for letting us know. We will continue to optimize our search . In the meantime, you can just search for "fireplace mantel" instead, and you should find what you need. Hope this helps!

skinny97214 If this issue is so common you need to write a FAQ about it, you have a problem with your UI. @endora is correct, your search breaks user expectations and de facto rules of how searches behave. If a user enters [fireplace mantel] they expect [fireplace AND mantel] not [fireplace OR mantel]. That's the way Google, Bing, Duck Duck Go, Yahoo, Wikipedia... basically everyone works. You can set your search to do an OR if the results returned are under one page, putting the AND searches at the top, clearly divided.

Lastly, you should support the more common boolean syntax in addition to the plus syntax.

france2016 Why are your filter fields so limited? It is very time consuming to scroll through million kids photos when I'm specifically looking for tween girls? Can't you add some additional filter selections??

cathbrad31 It would also be SO helpful if you could filter or sort a search by the price of products...just a thought

hcpatey I'd really like to see you guys invest in a better search engine, to include advanced searches..please...

skinny97214 @Gary Yue - Congratulations and sincere thanks for the search improvements! It's a huge win for users.

@hcpatey - Which specific functionality would you like to see in the advanced search? It's really helpful to know how you exactly use the site.

Amazon.com is a great example of how to build a sophisticated and powerful search system that's not intimidating for casual users. On the search results page, the entire left sidebar is devoted to ways to filter down the number of results. If the filtering/sorting features are useful enough to warrant building it, you should to expose to everyone, not hide it behind a separate advanced search page >2% of users will ever use.

msl511 I'm not hcpatey, but I would like to be able to get really specific. For instance, I want to be able to look at eclectic kitchens and then within that, search for pictures of kitchens that have white cabinets and black counters. So far as I can tell, I can use the categories on the left OR I can use search terms, but I can't use search terms within a category. I want to be able to look at kids' bedrooms, narrow it to boys and narrow it further to a specific color used. To start with, you need far more filters on the left hand side. Have you ever used Zappos? And your users need to be able to combine whatever use they want to make of filters with the use of search terms. And +1 on use of boolean syntax.

Also, and I'm about the 7000th person to mention this, you need to just get rid of duplicates. I cannot believe that there is anyone, using any kind of priority ordering of their search, who wants to see the same picture more than once.

Further, sometimes a search produces a lot of pictures, more than a person has the time or patience to look at in a single sitting. Wouldn't it be great if I could choose to see pictures in chronological order, ie the order in which they have been added to the site AND if I could somehow bookmark where I was in a search? That way, if I do a search that comes up with 759 pictures and I look at 345 today, I could mark where I stopped. Then, when I come back tomorrow, I would call up my bookmarked search. Let's say 24 pictures had been added that met the search criteria. I would be able to pick up where I left off and the search results would now include all 783 pictures. Let's assume that eventually I get through all the pictures. Then, as I think about my project for a couple of months, I could just keep coming back to my bookmarked search every couple of days or so and get to see all the new pictures that meet my criteria without having to wade through pictures I've seen already.

hcpatey I don't see any improvements in the search engine here... for example, I want to see only kitchens that have an island with both a stove top and sink on it. No matter what I do, I can't get that to work, I like looking al the photos here, but going through 1,000's of them is hard. Suggestions?

skinny97214 @hcpatey You're right, the search still isn't working on the desktop. I either hallucinated it or maybe there are some search features on the iPad app that seem to work better. If you search +island +stove +sink does that help? You can also filter it down to show only the style you're looking for. Modern has only 311 results.

Emily Hurley Hey guys, Thanks for the continued discussion on search.

For narrowing search results, on the website, the search filters and the search box at the top actually do work in conjunction with each other.

You can filter by style, room and metro area with filters on the left and also use the search box at the top to further narrow terms.

For example: Here is a search for Asian, Bedroom, in San Francisco. http://www.houzz.com/photos/asian/bedroom/san-francisco/

Here is that same search with the added term "black" in the search box.http://www.houzz.com/photos/asian/bedroom/san-francisco/black

You can also use quotes for exact phrase matching.

Plus signs, as noted by @skinny above will work as well.

Here is a search for: black stove rug
http://www.houzz.com/black-stove-rug

And the same search for: black +stove +rug
http://www.houzz.com/black-%2Bstove-%2Brug

Hope that helps a bit!

This search seems to find some islands with a stove and a sink on them, though certainly not perfect :http://www.houzz.com/photos/kitchen/sink-and-stove-%2B%22on-island%22

dcdukit I am REALLY with msl511,

It is addicting to sit around and look through a search, but then when I close the browser and come back to do the same search later, I am stuck searching through the same photos that I have already seen. A simple filter that would turn on/off photos that have been "viewed" by a user would be AWESOME.

goldenstar19 It would be helpful to add dimensions for the area

bryancara Yes it is frustrating to begin looking through 10,000 photos then have to start all over again a few hours later because all the photos are in a different order.

clwguy I have to agree with the other comments above. How many customers abandon their search because they got tired instead of buying something. You can include me in that list.