Background:
Yesterday, I wanted to look up the rules for making a Concentration check on the PRD, but I couldn't remember where in the ruleset they should be found. So I type "Concentration" into the Search box, thinking that this should work fine. I end up with more than 800 results, the first five or six pages of which are from the Bestiary, with monsters listed who have Concentration in their skill list. At that point I gave up and waited until I got home to my books.
Suggestion:
Tweak the Search feature so that it prioritizes search headings using the HTML tags that are already part of the PRD code.
The Concentration section I was looking for is in chapter 9, and the Concentration subheading there uses header tags to stand out. (h2, to be precise.) If the search algorithm had picked out every time the word "concentration" was between <h2> tags, and promoted those to the top of the results list, it would have probably been the top result. It would certainly have been on the first page.
I note that some sub-subheadings are id attributes within <p> tags, so that's something else to potentially call out in the search algorithm.
I suspect this change is nontrivial, and I'm not certain exactly how difficult it would be - especially if the search field contains more than one word - but it would likely make it a lot easier to find what you're looking for. It also doesn't require any recode of the existing PRD - just the search engine itself.
Agreed, this same search behavior has vexed me many times. It would be nice to have a radio-button/toggle to disregard bestiary entries, only search bestiary entries, or search both.
I've spent some time over the last couple days improving the PRD search results. Now if you search for 'Concentration' the very first result is the rules entry for concentration in the Magic chapter from the core rules. Similarly, if you search for a spell or a feat, the entry you want is almost always in the two or three, and is usually first.
You are teh aw3sum, Ross. Thanks! :)