Search relevance doesn't seem great

[Tyriar]

I build the only raster image editor for VS Code, when I search for "image editor" almost all the results of the first page are not relevant:

My extension is the 183rd entry:

Am I doing something wrong? It seems like the search is prioritizing "editor" and a high download count over actually matching the word "image" or the phrase "image editor". Ensuring both words show up in the search result and that the phrase appears together seems like the most important thing for relevance.

[RandomFractals]

yeah, you are not missing anything. vs marketplace search is really bad. it works only with direct hits on extension name, doesn't check extension description or keywords much and loads lots of old extensions with more installs first, rather than relevant extensions.

It's been frustrating to use it and we've seen a number of complains from devs just searching for the right extension and ending up asking us in vscode-dev-community slack.

[eamodio]

This is a LONG standing issue, and here are some related issues:

#19
microsoft/vscode#42890
microsoft/vscode#73182
microsoft/vscode#106418
microsoft/vscode#102193
microsoft/vscode#29779
microsoft/vscode#51207
microsoft/vscode#69810

[Tyriar]

I joined the darkside and jumped from number 183 to number 2

The number 1 is very much not relevant but its description contains the word "docker-image" and has a lot more downloads.

[anangaur]

Can this be duped to #154 after ensuring its listed as a category of search improvements we want to pursue? /cc: @prashantvc @isidorn

[Tyriar]

@anangaur #154 links to this issue in its top comment, it looks like you're using #154 as an overall checklist in which case this should stay open until it's improved?

[isidorn]

This is fixed in latest VS Code Insiders. Please try it out and let us know if there are still examples where you think that search is not working.
We expect the fixed search to be in VS Code Stable start of December.
Looking forward to feedback - thanks!