On the new Private Property website you will see a very prominent search box, in more technical terms it’s referred to as a “fuzzy search” and we are very excited about it as we believe it will drastically enhance the sites usability.
Its purpose is to get you to what you are looking for as quickly and easily as possible.
The term “fuzzy search” refers to an exact or inexact search term typed in by the user, where the website responds by taking or showing the user the most relevant results matching the searched data.
We have seen a few implementations of a “fuzzy search” on various websites, and the correct formula is still a debate, our feeling is that there should be a good balance between the free format component and structured component i.e. a free format search that takes you to a page where you can refine your search using the current filter sets.
The fuzzy search will always be a work in progress, and our current implementation allows for a suburb, home-type, bedroom and a variable price range search term, here are a few examples.
e.g. [3 bed duplex in bellville between 700k and 1000000]
e.g. [4 bed house camps bay > 4mil]
e.g. [elardus park less than 500k]
As we improve the search it we be more of an “English language search” and you would be able to get results for complex and street searches and “points of interest”, here is an example of what you might type.
3 bedroom houses near Wynberg Boys' High School
Why not go to www.privateproperty.co.za and try some searches out.