Hi everyone. We unveiled the Fab roadmap toward the end of last year, and in this post, we’re giving an update on some of the search improvements we are rolling out today, and what we are working on for the next big update.
Let’s walk through it:
1. Search
We are overhauling and improving all portions of search. This will be an iterative process as we will need to put our changes live to see how they work out for a wide variety of search queries, and then make numerous tweaks based on internal testing and community feedback. After we evaluate the results, we’ll rinse and repeat until we get it right.
// Tweaked weights - 
- Live with refinements ongoing
- We’ve tweaked the weighting of listing elements to strike a better balance between tags, creator names, exact match, and so forth. We will need to continue to tweak and improve this in the weeks ahead.
// Quality Scoring - - Live with refinements ongoing
- Built a feature to handle quality scoring based on a series of inputs, and then blend the quality score with the relevancy score to get better overall results.
// Prioritizing more complete listings - - Live
- Entries with just a few words, or a single tag, were surfacing much higher than expected. We’ve modified things to balance this out and prioritize results that are properly filled out.
// Category names - -Live
- Category names are now also indexed for each product, increasing the likelihood of finding relevant content.
- In addition, you can see in the UI updates that we are making category navigation a more prominent feature of the site - this change should improve discoverability.
// Plural/Singular - -Live
- When searching for singular words, it will now also consider the plural version of that word and vice versa. It will still give more weight to the word that is an exact match to your query, but the plural or singular version will now be taken into account too.
// Taking into account Sales/Download/Entitlement Data - 
- In progress and aiming to go live during February
- We are working to incorporate some historical data from Unreal Engine Marketplace and Sketchfab into search rankings. Once the historical data has been brought in, the next step will be to do further work with current Fab data such as download numbers and sales.
// Synonyms - - In progress and aiming to go live during February
- Working on implementing a solution for how to handle synonyms for search queries.
- We are currently building our synonym list that will include some common synonyms as well as 3D and game development specific synonyms. This will be an iterative process that will involve multiple releases as we want to make sure we are keeping the specificity needed when looking for a particular asset, category, or genre.
// Better handling of common formats - In progress and aiming to go live during February
- Pick up on format terms such as “Unreal Engine”, “Unity”, “FBX” to return more focused results.
// Other
Search by Quixel/Sketchfab ID - - Live
Search syntax support - - Live
- +(must), -(must not), “”(exact), *(wildcard)
Admin improvements - - Live
- In order to increase the pace of changes in our search algorithm, we’ve developed some internal tools that will allow us to help identify problem searches, and make and test changes quickly.
2. UX/UI
// Improved tag authoring - - In progress and aiming to go live during February
An accurate set of tags are key to help ensure that search can find the right content. As part of this, we are implementing a list of common tags during the publishing process.
Note: these tags are still in development and will change before they’re implemented.
// Left Nav - - In progress and aiming to go live during February
Categories are being moved to a new left nav tree to make it easier to navigate and discover content. For example, it will help to show how your search results are distributed across the categories to help narrow down the results.
Work in progress video from dev server.
We still need to improve the counters, complete some responsive design work, and go through testing and polish.
// Updated Filter Bar - - In progress and aiming to go live during February
The filter bar has been moved to the top and now uses a horizontal layout.
// Additional Filter Options - - In progress and aiming to go live during February
Filter by style
Styles shown are still subject to change as we settle on the final list - input welcome below!
// Filter by technical details (v1)
V1 will not yet have all details as certain technical details, like polycount, involve complexities that we will need to work on after the initial release.
The options shown above are subject to change – feedback welcome here as well!
// Filter by publisher
// Search Suggestions - - In testing and aiming to go live during February
An improved pop-up that suggests search terms, creator names, and tags, as well as a tweak to how Unity/Unreal Engine/UEFN content is suggested.
// Content Preferences - - In testing and aiming to go live during February
The filter settings for mature content and products made with generative AI will be moved to a new Content preferences panel, and once you have made a choice, it will be persistent and last from one session to the next.
Fullscreen Media Carousel - - In testing and aiming to go live during February
You can now view screenshots in fullscreen mode on product pages using the maximize button in the top right, and cycle through screenshots while they are maximized. Keyboard controls work too: F = fullscreen, Esc= close, arrows to cycle.
3. Wishlists
We have been working on the first version of the Wishlists feature and we have it largely implemented on our dev server. We are aiming to have this go live during February
In this first version you will be able to wishlist up to 150 products, browse everything that is in your wishlist, and move wishlist items to your cart.
In progress video from our dev server.
In a future update, we are planning to add notifications for when your Wishlist items are discounted.
Everyone will start off with a fresh wishlist. We won’t be migrating any of the old Unreal Engine Marketplace wishlists over at this point. If you would like to retrieve a PDF version of your old UE Marketplace wishlist, please contact our support team.
Highlighting that improving search is an iterative process that will take a number of passes. Our changes are a step forward, but there is certainly room for a lot more improvement too and we would love to hear of any search queries where you are noticing unexpected results!
Thanks for all of your product suggestions and sharing what matters most to you. Please continue to share your feedback – this helps make Fab better.
