What makes for a great search experience?

This morning, I started working on a couple of posts that will pit the search experience of two competing sites against each other. I plan to finish and publish these in the next few days, but I'd like to get the comment-mill going in the meantime. The question is:

What are the things that make for your ideal search experience?

If you can, please comment on this post and list a few things you think ypur ideal search needs to have. It doesn't need to be comprehensive, just a few ideas off the top of your head. Also, feel free to link to a site or sites that you think do search well. Finally, since I'd love to get as many comments as possible, feel free send this post around to friends, family, search experts, etc so they can comment as well. I'd love to get a long list of the things people are looking for in their search experience.

Here are some of mine to start things off:

1. Ubiquitous (or uniform) search box
2. Results easy to identify, even on a crowded page
3. Ability to refine or start over

This is by no means complete. So what do you think?