Experimental Search Engine

Trakt VIP Beta Features
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We’re beta testing a new experimental search engine. This is a drop in replacement for the old search engine, but runs on different tech and servers behind the scenes. As of 2025-05-20T07:00:00Z this new search engine is turned ON for all VIP members.

Data indexing in progress

The search data is currently indexing, and I expect it to take 24-48 hours until it’s fully done. Shows and movies will be indexed first since that is most searched. We’re also indexing episodes, people, and lists.

Why are you testing a new search engine?

We’re working to improve the accuracy and speed for search results. We’re hoping this new engine improves both. Data accuracy seems a lot better so far with our internal testing, but we’ll need to tweak and weight the results to get the best output.

What if I want to use the old search engine?

The search engine can be switched in your settings. This is useful if you want to compare results between the 2 engines.

Any limitations?

There shouldn’t be any limitations since the new search engine was created to be a drop in replacement. That means search queries and filtering should all work. Part of this beta test is to figure out what breaks with your specific search queries or filter combinations. Please drop a comment with specific steps to reproduce any errors or unexpected search results.

Bugs or unexpected search results

Please drop a comment with specific steps to reproduce and screenshots so we can take a look. The new engine is pretty much running “out of the box” and we plan to tweak the settings over the coming weeks to improve the results.

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Please see “View History” bug posted here: Bug with View History

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That bug isn’t related to the search engine.

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Try searching for the movie “I Care A Lot” by title, it will just not show up in the results at all. It does with the old search.

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Hi @justin, you may already be aware but the enhanced search is not working when set to experimental for languages
https://forums.trakt.tv/t/language-search-returning-500-error

I believe any indexing etc should be done by now? I have reverted back to Standard for now

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Just trying some stuff I already reported with the old engine… we only got it worse I guess..?

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librewolf_PYSj3lyDVQ
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That’s why the search engine is labeled as experimental. I am still working to optimize and weight the search results.

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The new search engine on the website has been tuned to give much more accurate results. Please give it a try and let me know if you’re seeing better movies and shows being returned.

There is still more changes we have planned, but this is a big step up in accuracy based on our internal testing.

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I received better movies and shows, however when using numbers I receive mixed results, Example, the Sci-Fi TV Show “100” for instance, doesn’t show at all, for me.

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That’s a tougher one to match, but I do see it listed in position 10 when searching “100” and position 1 when searching “the 100”. This was doing a shows & movies search.

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There’s a marked and noticeable improvement. I had temporarily disabled the experimental search because of some errors it had been throwing but it is now much more accurate.

Shows that didn’t propagate and show as fast in the old method of search are now as would be expected. Especially newer shows that might not have been easily found before without using IMDb or TMDB identifiers.

Definite improvement!

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Doing the same tests I did before for consistency,

WWE:

image
image1920×926 225 KB

Star Wars:

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image1920×902 168 KB

I agree there has been an improvement.

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I made some additional improvements, so individual searches (i.e. movies only) are showing a big improvement for some search terms, and especially incomplete search terms. Here is one example for matrix and a comparison between the search engine today, last week, and the old search engine.

I also enabled the new search engine for all signed in members (can be disable in settings while we’re still testing). Next week, I will likely expand the test to guest users as well.

Experiment Engine (2025-07-07T07:00:00Z)

july 7
july 71920×978 220 KB

Experiment Engine (2025-07-03T07:00:00Z)

last week
last week1920×980 224 KB

Old Search Engine

old
old1920×1104 219 KB

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I was searching for a list “The 21st Century’s Most Acclaimed Horror Films” List search results for The 21st Century’s Most Acclaimed Horror Films - Trakt which doesn’t exist on the site - yet it brings me plenty of results for lists without “horror” in it. imho if I add keywords to it should be respected in the search. I would understand filtering out things like “a” “the” or punctuation signs?