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My side project

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  • May 25, 2013 at 11:21 am #18909
    stefv

    Hi,

    This is a promotional post for a side project I have been working on for the past 6 months. By day, I am a software engineer and I have put together a website that I think you will be interested in. It’s a universal online bike shop where you can search multiple retailers at once and hopefully find yourself the best deal.

    I’ve finally got it to a state where I think it is good enough to go public and you can find it at http://leadoutbikes.com . I will not stop there though as I plan to constantly develop the site so that it becomes better and better.

    Constructive feedback is most appreciated.

    Many thanks,

    David

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  • November 30, 2013 at 5:13 pm #738499
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    stefv

    It’s a while since I posted
    It’s a while since I posted here, but I have continued working on my website and I believe it is much improved.

    Once again, I would really appreciated it if those of you that are interested could take a look and offer some constructive feedback too.

    Improvements since I last posted here:
    * Faster page loading
    * Faster searching
    * More accurate searching
    * Common spelling mistakes are understood and synonyms are automatically matched
    * Better look and feel
    * Improved site navigation
    * More products from more retailers: AW Cycles, BikesDirect365, BikeFusion, Chain Reaction Cycles, CycleStore, Cycle Surgery, Evans, Halfords, Leisure Lake Bikes, Merlin Cycles, Pro Bike Kit, Rapha, Rutland Cycling, Wiggle & Westbrook Cycles. (Hargroves to come when they fix their product feed issues.)

    Let me know what you think… Thanks

    May 31, 2013 at 6:14 pm #738497
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    stefv

    Madhouse/Ben- Yes, category
    Madhouse/Ben- Yes, category filtering is a good idea and something I already had in mind. The reason I’ve held back initially is that the category information is inconsistent between retailers, which would make it a bit less useful than might be imagined, but I’ll play around and see what I can do there.

    Sm – it should work on mobile browsers, but it is not optimised for that format. It’s, again, something I would definitely like to get around to implementing. Unfortunately, that will have to wait, especially since the sun is coming back out

    Thanks again, as the feedback has already been really useful. In fact, just replaying some of the searches for myself to assess the quality a very useful exercise.

    Cheers

    May 31, 2013 at 5:33 pm #738495
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    sm

    Ignore that last comment,
    Ignore that last comment, think it is my app making mischief not your site.

    May 31, 2013 at 5:28 pm #738493
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    sm

    Doesn’t work on mobile, well,
    Doesn’t work on mobile, well, my android. Will check out on desktop later.

    May 31, 2013 at 2:27 pm #738491
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    madhouse

    After doing a search you give
    After doing a search you give the option of picking a brand or retailer on the left, how about adding a product category? It’s an evolution of the MTB/road toggle that Ben mentioned.

    May 31, 2013 at 12:06 pm #738489
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    stefv

    Thanks Ben. Yeah, that is my
    Thanks Ben. Yeah, that is my picture. It’s a still from a video I titled ‘Tour of Britain 2012, Stage 8 – Worst ever video footage of a Mark Cavendish sprint finish’:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqaJmGmReJo 😉

    I’m mapping common spelling mistakes as they occur, so I’ll be sure to add derailleur and cassette.

    Instead of did you mean, i will just return what I think you mean. In the current implementation you get the same result if you search for ‘sis jel’ and ‘sis gel’.

    Cheers

    May 31, 2013 at 11:39 am #738487
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    MrBLH

    PS. Is that your picture of
    PS. Is that your picture of last years TOB finish in Guildford?

    I would have been standing under the word ‘Products’ :H

    May 31, 2013 at 11:36 am #738485
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    MrBLH

    It looks good as a site and
    It looks good as a site and I’ll use it to look up some future purchases.

    How about a ‘did you mean?’ function in the search.

    If I don’t spell things correctly then the search doesn’t find them.

    Derailleur & cassette were two examples I looked at.

    Another filter feature I quite often use is the distinction between Road/MTB specific parts, it can quickly narrow down results.

    Ben

    May 31, 2013 at 11:12 am #738483
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    stefv

    I won’t spam this forum every
    I won’t spam this forum every time I make an update, but I have put quite a few nice tweaks in to the search algorithm since the weekend, so hopefully you’ll find it works better if you want to try again. Thanks

    May 25, 2013 at 2:39 pm #738481
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    stefv

    Ok, I’ll take that on board.
    Ok, I’ll take that on board. I have a few tweaks in mind for the search quality, so I hope to improve that very soon. Thanks.

    May 25, 2013 at 2:32 pm #738479
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    sm

    That’s a nice feature
    That’s a nice feature (assuming you know what the popular searches will be?) but I’d question if that is a priority for your site. For me the most valuable feature of your site is keyword search accuracy, followed by filters. I’d spend time on other features once you have those nailed. My next priority would be SEO.

    May 25, 2013 at 1:57 pm #738477
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    stefv

    Following on from that, sm,
    Following on from that, sm, my next goal is to implement pre-defined searches, (so you will be able to click on the words at the top and bring up a menu). I can work on improving my search algorithm, but also in the meantime I can pre-define the searches to give the best results first with the current algorithm.

    Cheers

    May 25, 2013 at 1:55 pm #738475
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    stefv

    Thanks sm – that definitely
    Thanks sm – that definitely helps…

    May 25, 2013 at 12:14 pm #738473
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    sm

    I think you need to lose the
    I think you need to lose the intro text and promo box – your audience is task driven, they want to find things. Search box should be pride of place. You’d do well to learn from rivals like bikehound. Search dominates the page (although they do waste some space that could feature bargains of the day for example).

    Most important above all else is to give me what i want and that means a good search engine. If I type jersey into your site the first result is a book. Your rival gives me jerseys starting with those that have the biggest saving. Exactly what I want.

    Your site does the search filters very well and this is where you should focus your time, search and filtering. Help me get to what I want. Keep the design clean and simple.

    Hope that helps and good luck.

    May 25, 2013 at 11:47 am #738471
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    stefv

    I think there are a few
    I think there are a few existing ones. I hope to make my site better than the others 😉

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