Currently when searching for a term in a language different from the selected region/language combination (ex. searching for a French phrase with "Canada (ca - en)" selected), Kagi does not surface results in the other language even when no results can be found in English.
Situation:
When I enter "acronyme pour evaporateur" with "Canada (ca - en)" selected, Kagi gives a message saying:
We haven't found anything.
There are no results for the given query.
Check your spelling or try different keywords.
I am forced to manually switch to ca - fr from the drop down menu, which correctly shows useful results for the French term but adds unnecessary friction to the search experience.
Minimal solution:
Automatically switch the search query region/lang to one that is in the detected language when no results can be found in the original query region/lang, starting with other language options in the same region and ending at the fall-back option (a region/lang combination set by Kagi developers that can be expected to give the most results for the detected language).
Ex.
"acronyme pour evaporateur"
Canada (ca - en) - no results >
Canada (ca - fr) - 17 results found
Ex.
"Vorteile von 3-stufigen luftgekühlten Kompressoren Mistral Baureihe"
Canada (ca - en) - no results >
Canada (ca - fr) - no results >
Germany (DE) - 24 results found
Optimal solution:
Include results from pages in a secondary language when there are few or low-relevance results in the original search language, with a preference for sites from the same region.
Ex. Searching for "Judge Jacques Trudel Christian Lach"
Kagi Canada (ca - en) - 13 English results, only 1 of which is relevant to the query
Kagi Canada (ca - fr) - 18 French and English results, 10 of which are relevant to the query
How will it affect existing workflows?
The existing Kagi workflow requires users to think about what language they should use for a query and remember to manually set it before searching in a non-default language, penalizing them with low quality or completely absent results if they do not choose correctly for a given query.
Kagi is already superior to Google by allowing users to easily repeat searches in other languages right from the search results page (I tried searching for "Judge Jacques Trudel Christian Lach" on Google Canada (English) and was reminded why I am paying for Kagi...). However, incorporating foreign language results into the first search for a foreign language phrase would take Kagi to the next level and greatly increase its value proposition as a "premium, user-focused search engine."
Usage scenarios:
Scenario one: User searches for a phrase that doesn't exist in their set search language
- User enters the phrase into the search bar and starts search
- Kagi silently detects the language of the query
- Kagi finds that 0 results would be returned for the query in the original search language
- Kagi checks whether other languages in the same region would provide results. If not, it performs a search in the developer-set fall-back for the detected query language (see above).
- Kagi presents results with a disclaimer saying "Showing results from X region and language"
Scenario two: User searches for a phrase that has less results in their set search language
- User enters the phrase into the search bar and starts search
- Kagi silently detects the language of the query
- Kagi determines that the results returned for the query in the original search language would have low relevance
- Kagi checks whether other languages in the same region would provide results. If not, it performs a search in the developer-set fall-back for the detected query language (see above).
- Kagi presents results with a disclaimer saying "Including results from X region and language"
OR
- Kagi returns the results unmodified with a prompt to "Include results from X region and language"
