Re: "GIN and GiST Index Types" page is about usage in full text search, but looks general purpose

Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie> writes:
> The page in question is "12.9. GIN and GiST Index Types", but it's
> really supplementary information for "12.2.2. Creating Indexes". The
> fact that the former has greater prominence than the latter (a general
> discussion of FTS indexing) seems like a problem in itself.

> At one point GiST was competitive with GIN for full text search
> performance (or at least more competitive). These days use of GiST for
> FTS should be rare. So the title should suggest that GiST FTS indexing
> is the nonstandard choice.

I think we should take the index type names out of the section title
entirely, and name it something generic like "Preferred Index Types for
Full Text Search".  Unfortunately, with the EOL'd documentation versions
being pretty much frozen in time, it's not clear that we can prevent
Google from continuing to find that 9.1 page when the search terms
include GIN and GIST.  I suspect it's keying off those terms appearing
in the page title :-(

After the recent changes discussed on the -www list, it's possible
that Google will eventually stop indexing the 9.1 page altogether,
but I'm not holding my breath.

            regards, tom lane