Five Simple Ways to Dramatically Improve Search

The greatest challenge for organizations implementing SharePoint is really understanding Search; what is Search and what can it do for you in your day-to-day work. There are many ways to improve your organization's Search and to configure your search engine, but the most important thing is to keep focused on a only few topics as a starting point.

1. Navigation.

Consider how to turn your SharePoint Search engine into a good navigation tool by linking to the document library, working with the preview, and also faceted search. Important aspect to consider for your organization: enabling users to navigate from search results to the document library, adding a preview to the document, and then adding and working with your faceted search within the [SharePoint] search center.

2. Ranking.

A simple way to work with and improve your ranking is by improving your titles - ensuring your titles are meaningful. Greater challenges appear when working with special parameters, e.g. graphical locations, and calculating the relevance.

3. Connectivity to Legacy Systems.

There is an overwhelming need among organizations to connect to their legacy systems and actually retrieve content. Indexing speed and mapping user credentials are particularly challenging.

4. Indexing.

The challenge is making sure that everything relevant to the organization is included in the index and at the same time, making sure all the irrelevant items to the organization are excluded. Indexing is very resource demanding, and requires attention to tuning and timing. A lot of memory comes into play - in most environments it is very important to have a dedicated indexing server.

5. Word Breaking.

The word breaking challenge in German and Nordic languages is due to compound words. Ensuring that proper language packs are installed and functioning correctly helps to improve accuracy and relevancy, but many search engines are still challenged by this.

Lars will be conducting a FREE Webinar on Wednesday, June 3rd at 2PM CST. Please Register for the webinar to learn more!