Sort search results by date or relevance?

AARRRGH

Hello

I'm hoping so of you can give you your opinion on this minor issue.

I've added a new sorting feature to parttimejobs.ie where you can sort results by either date or relevance.

Example:
Date: http://www.parttimejobs.ie/index.php?k=customer%20service&l=&sort=date
Relevance: http://www.parttimejobs.ie/index.php?k=customer%20service&l=&sort=rel

The date sorting works something like -

select * from jobs where title like whatever or body like whatever order by
date
exact search phrase in title
all the search words in the title
some of the search words in the title
exact search phrase in body
all the search words in the body
some of the search words in the body

And the relevance works something like -

select * from jobs where title like whatever or body like whatever order by
exact search phrase in title
all the search words in the title
some of the search words in the title
exact search phrase in body
all the search words in the body
some of the search words in the body
date

As you can see, the only difference is where I put the date ordering, but it does very much change the ordering of the search results.

Now for my question:

In your opinion should it default to sorting by date or by relevance? At the moment I am defaulting to by date.

Thank you!

Solarpitch

Personally I think sorting it by date would be better. From using jobs.ie in the past they seem to default a search by date displaying the most recent positions uploaded.

I think if you presented a list of results by default based on relevance, there might be some results that are a week, 2 weeks old at the top of the search which I'm not sure is the best way to display results for a jobs site.

I'd say default to date and allow to choose relevance as a preference. Or do what computer jobs.ie do, they display a green bar indicating how relevant the result is to the search. You could always default it to date showing the most recent and have a bar beside it showing the relevance of the result.

That way they can easily scan down the page from recent to old positions while seeing which ones are more relevant.

none

I personally also favour date but the biggest fish in the pond, i.e., monster thinks otherwise.

AARRRGH

Thank you for your replies. I will have a think about what you said.

mneylon

I'd go with date, unless you're actively purging older job offers, in which case relevance would make more sense.