Why GitHub search doesn't find Ruby projects?

[al6x]

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Search language:Ruby, with Sort by: Most stars, link, returns first project with 700 stars, why and how to fix it?

[Akash1134]

Hi @al6x , Thanks for posting on the GitHub community. The search and filters applied appears to be working as expected. Could you be more specific on which Repo is showing up incorrectly?

[al6x]

I set search for projects written in ruby sorted by stars. There are ruby projects with 50k stars, tens of projects > 10k stars, and hundreds with >1k stars, yet GitHub search shows the first project with 0.8k stars.
How is that correct?

[al6x]

Any update?

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[al6x]

No, it's not answered, it's ignored.

[Akash1134]

Hi @al6x ,

GitHub's search results are ranked by a combination of factors, not just stars. These factors may include:

• Repository name
• Description
• README content
• Recent activity
• Popularity (stars, forks, watchers, etc..)
• Amount and recency of collaborative activity (PRs, issues)

So, it's possible that a repo with fewer stars could rank higher if it has a more relevant name, description, or README content, or if it has been recently active.

[al6x]

@Akash1134 then it's also wrong, or misleading at best, as in the "Sort by:" input field it's clearly chosen "Most stars".

Don't you thing that when you choose "Sort by: Most stars" - and the result is not sorted by most stars - is wrong?

[LiteBrite82]

I did an advanced search and selected ruby and stars >100:
https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A%3E1000+language%3ARuby&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=Ruby&l=

[LiteBrite82]

@al6x

I looked a little closer. It seams you are absolutely correct; when using just the web UI, selecting the ruby language by dropdown and pressing search you are given 2.4m returns. When you filter those returns for "most stars" via the UI filter at the top of the returns window, it filters in descending order beginning with the repo with 1k or so stars. which is a false return; there are ruby repos with way more than 1k stars.

Conversely, when running the search with manual input, instead of using the UI as above, the search returns the expected result: All ruby language repos filtered by the most stars in descending order; the top most being 50k stars.

I think what is happening is when you apply that filter it re runs the search that is in the search bar language:ruby and only filters the first 1000 returns - the filter is not part of the search term and is only applied after receiving the page maximum of 1000 items.

I was able to test this by applying the minimum and maximum star filter to your original search language:ruby and getting the consistent inaccurate return.
I did the same with language:ruby stars:>1 and received the expected results. However, when running the filter, the returns are different, not just reorganizing 1000 returns from ascending to descending....

something isn't right and consistency isn't happening between using the UI to search and typing in an explicit search. I too found the current state of the web UI search inaccurate and less than helpful.

[LiteBrite82]

So for now; to answer the original question: "why and how to fix it".

It seems there may be a bug in the search when using buttons to select search filters. Typing an explicit search into the search bar (or using the advanced search feature) yields more accurate results.

Here is a link to our repository search guide for all available search methods

and @bonniss made a nice little search cheat sheet that gives some practical examples. Thanks for sharing @bonniss !