Re: Re: Dear Lazy Web: Pseudo Randomisation Strategies on Listing Websites

On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 9:05 AM, Colin Guthrie <gmane@colin.guthr.ie> wrote: > Thanks everyone for responses. > > 'Twas brillig, and Nathan Rixham at 20/08/10 13:17 did gyre and gimble: >> if you use mysql you can seed rand() with a number to get the same >> random results out each time (for that seed number) >> >>   SELECT * from table ORDER BY RAND(234) >> >> Then just use limit and offset as normal. > > This is a neat trick! Yeah that will avoid the need for the static > lookup table with 32 randomised columns. Would it work to return a list of some limited number of randomly ordered "featured" listings/items on the page, while leaving the full list ordered by whatever natural ordering (by date, order entered, alphabetical, etc.)? That gives every owner a chance to appear in a prominent spot on the page while solving the issue you cited about page breaks (and SEO if that is a concern). You can still use any of the suggestions that have been discussed to determine how frequently the featured items list is reseeded to help make caching practical. Just a thought. Andrew