Tesco search engine - just wierd sometimes!

vjm63

This is not a rant, just a large sigh of exasperation about the Tesco online search engine for shopping. I was looking for milk, and so, naturally put in 'fresh cow milk'. Up comes http://i742.photobucket.com/albums/xx62/vjm63/cow%20milk%20search%20gives%20eggs.jpg

I have had this before, but this time I emailed them to ask., basically, why?! The email was not stroppy, but amused. But back came a phone call from someone who told me in all seriousness that they did not do fresh cow milk in my local Tesco, so the system offered the nearest option.

I just could not face explaining that it was mildly irritating, but actually quite amusing, so I did not take it further!

Anyone else had similarly weird search results?

vuvuzela

Terrible search result, but why on earth did you specify 'cow milk' ? The vast majority of milk sold in the UK is from cows, I don't believe I have ever seen a bottle marked 'cow milk', just 'fresh milk'. They will say it's from cows on the packaging in small letters, but not on the front.

bod1467

Yes, but ... how on earth can "fresh cow milk" in ANY way equate to Eggs? (Other than obliquely to the "fresh" term).

marliepanda

Just put in milk....

Azari

The problem with the Tesco search engine is that it tries to be far more clever than its capabilities warrant.

It's forever coming up with weird and wonderful results that bear little relation to what you want but frequently fails to find what you do.

In the OP's case, it's clearly done two things:

1) Prioritised 'fresh' over 'milk'.
2) Selected dairy because milk has been specified.

Then, because they do not list fresh milk as 'fresh' it's looked to see what it can find with the primary search term fresh, seconday search term 'cows', and the alternate tertiary term: 'dairy'.

Since (presumably) no products contain the word 'cows', and retailers consider eggs to be 'dairy', you get 'fresh eggs'.

Quite why it didn't pad out the results with products containing the exact search term 'milk' is a bit of a mystery as they usually like to give you as many results as possible.

baza52

at least the OP found the 2 bottles of gin without a problem

MoneyMate

TESCO
Must admit hate this site, since they had hackers in even more difficult to sign in.

Sooler

fresh cow milk gave me
Tesco Finest Fresh Grated Parmesan 60G

Cycrow

bod1467 wrote: »

Yes, but ... how on earth can "fresh cow milk" in ANY way equate to Eggs? (Other than obliquely to the "fresh" term).

Maybe Tesco get their eggs from Cows.

afterall, they got their beef from horses

vjm63

Sorry for not replying yesterday - internet on the glitch.

I've tried fresh milk - and the first ones I get are lactofree, alpro soya, and almond. That is why I tried adding the 'cow' into there. I also buy goat milk - so another reason for using cow as a search term to differentiate.

Sooler - I think parmesan is an even worse result than eggs! - well done (I think).

Baza - well done for spotting the gin - I think I deserve it after attempting a Tesco online shop, sometimes!

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