I think it would be nice if CHYOA had a recommended section, where it shows you stories that have tags you frequent or like often because currently, the only way to discover new stories is to stumble upon them on the recently updated section or new stories section. This means older stories that aren't being added to are just kind of gone. I get that that would be difficult to implement, so instead, a simple multi-tag-search function would be much better. So say I wanted to only look for stories that had both fantasy and a threesome, I could. You should also be able to blacklist certain tags or genres, so you don't have to see any stories that you won't like. This would also have the bonus of encouraging all those accountless readers to make accounts, which means more interaction, more content, and more revenue for the website. I don't know why they haven't implemented any of this.
Doesn't CHYOA already do that (except the blacklisting) with its search bar? You can search for threesome under the Fantasy genre for example. Not sure if you'll like the results as per relevance, but you can change sorting to your preference (rating, chapter depth, last activity, etc.). You can search for your tags in chapters too.
Adding a feature that suggests Stories based on the readers' preferences might be interesting. You might want to add a suggestion about that to the Suggestions subforum. The search function doesn't allow searching for multiple tags, though the tag system is not that useful in my opinion as many authors put way too many tags on their chapters, even if the respective theme isn't actually present. Other than that, it is possible to search for multiple keywords. By adding + in front of each, each of them must be part of the result. By adding - in front of a keyword, it must not be included. Putting a "phrase" in quotes searches for the exact phrase. It is also possible to apply category and other filters. Additionally, you could use the search engine smutmd. After performing your search, you can filter the results to only show results from CHYOA.
TBH, the best way I have found to find new stuff is to go to authors that I like, then click on the "Recent Activity" tab of their profile and see what they are upvoting. Then go to that story's author and repeat.
I think the current search tool on the site is a bit shit. I could look for a story knowing its exact names and a number of other keywords that easily get me to find it as the first option on google, but if I use CHYOA's system it might literally be the last option it suggests, with a bunch of stuff that doesn't even match half of what I put in getting displayed first. Example: search for "Naruto's World", sort by relevance, at least 218 pages of "suggestions", the result is on the 2nd page, you start getting less stories you'd reasonably expect by about page 10. Look for a story about a dude with a permanent boner, only remember one plot involving a chick named Zelda calling MC "Mr Hugs", so use the search to find something relevant to "mall zelda hugs". The story in question is "The Hardon Life", won't find it in any of the 12 pages it suggests. The search function here is a hot fucking mess.
The search here works for me the vast majority of the time. I'll admit I've used a Google search on occasion though. I know a lot more about the search options I have there to drill down into results. CHYOA's search isn't perfect but it's a decent basic engine.
Yes, it's common behavior of search engines. If you don't have the quotes, it will return all results for "Naruto's" (or even "Naruto" or "Narutos") + all results for "World". It doesn't matter if one of the terms is missing. The results on Google are similar. 523 results with quotes and 21,700 results without quotes The only difference is that the desired page appears first on Google.
