My latest project was to implement a redesign of the PeoplePerHour “Find Freelancers” page.

Why is the new search better?

1. It’s twice as fast
   • Many less DB queries per page (old: >100, new: 10)
   • Less page reloads needed (results refinement via AJAX)
   • Uses faster DB queries, less table JOINs and better indexes
2. It returns more relevant results
   • It supports multiple keywords and uses Natural language full-text search so ranking takes into account proximity and duplication
   • Users get feedback about why a result was returned (keyword match highlighting)
3. It’s more powerful
   • More search options, e.g. search on hourly rate of provider.
   • Returns more information, e.g. provider earnings, hourly rate
4. It has better SEO
   • Used fairly nice URLs, higher keyword density, better HTML markup, better code to content ratio.
   • Added links to “Related queries”, “Popular queries” and “Top Searches by sector”.
5. The user-interface and page layout has been improved. (UI built with JQuery).
6. Users can now link to any search (cut&paste URL)