zulip: Search doesn't match words in URL, only whole hostname or path

Details on what matches and doesn’t match: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/9165#issuecomment-855061552

Links with additional reports of the issue and discussion:

• 2018 user report and some product discussion of desired behavior: https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/137-feedback/topic/indexing.20urls/near/655441
• 2020 explanation below of how this can make a big difference in the effectiveness of search: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/9165#issuecomment-596857254
• 2020 #backend discussion of implementation strategies: https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/3-backend/topic/Searching.20parts.20of.20url.20.239165/near/996827
• 2021 user report, discussion of the underlying subsystem that provides the current behavior, and product discussion of desired behavior: https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/137-feedback/topic/How.20to.20get.20search.20to.20work.20for.20this/near/1171632
• 2021 “An organization administrator I reached out to mentioned this as their top issue”: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/9165#issuecomment-983039342, below
• 2023 user report: https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/stream/137-feedback/topic/link.20terms.20do.20not.20show.20up.20in.20search.20results/near/1580761

Original report follows.

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The search function right now will only find URLs if they’re entered fully. I.e. I will only find https://www.blog.google if I enter www.blog.google (it won’t find it if I type blog.google or .google). An example of this can be seen here: https://youtu.be/j6e_l6-3APQ

Similarly if I want to find something that has a SEO URL format (title of the post or whatever in the URL), I cannot find them easily. This is also shown in the video with me searching for zulip (with the URL to this repo being visible in the stream).

This is on Zulip 1.8.0. ( Also, is there a way to see the server version from within the app itself? I can find it out easily by checking the running version on the server, but I can’t seem to find a way for other users or administrators to see the currently running server version. Event the /stats site doesn’t contain it. )