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SharePoint Search. Ben Robb MVP, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Lead Technical Consultant, cScape Ltd. Agenda. Part 1: Introduction to MOSS search capabilities Part 2: Branding MOSS search capabilities Part 3: Search Engine Optimisation. SharePoint Search.
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SharePoint Search Ben Robb MVP, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Lead Technical Consultant, cScape Ltd
Agenda • Part 1: Introduction to MOSS search capabilities • Part 2: Branding MOSS search capabilities • Part 3: Search Engine Optimisation
SharePoint Search • Enterprise level search engine • Scalable • Extensible • Standard search engine functionality • Security trimming • Full API support • Managed code • Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query • Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration • Web Services
SharePoint Search • “Infrastructure Update” introduces Search Server 2008 features • Federated Search • Consistent management UI • Better reports
DEMO Basic SharePoint Search
OOTB web parts • Search Box • Search Core Results • Search Best Bets • Search High Confidence Results • Search Statistics • Search Paging • Search Action Links
People search • Allows for the discovery of other users within the organisation based on the information within user profiles
Use search to help your users • Pre-defined search queries can improve the user experience
DEMO Exploring the search features of Adventure Works
Exploring Search Administration • Single dashboard for managing search • Allows administrators to quickly find information about how search is working • Provides top level statistics for Search
Managing crawls • Search crawls can be started • Manually • On a scheduled basis • Crawls are either • Full – all content is crawled • Incremental – only content which has changed since the last crawl is crawled
DEMO Managing search using Search Administration configuration
Customising search results • Branding / UI changes • Displaying different search columns • Using additional features
Changing search display • Core Results Web Part • Uses XSLT to show results • Can sit either directly on a page layout or in a web part zone • No need to code the search query itself
Displaying additional columns • <SelectColumns> property of Core Results Web Part • Allows additional fields to be made available to the XSLT for rendering
Adding Federated Search • Uses the Federated Results web part • Automatically issues a query to the federated service (e.g. Live Search) and displays it on the page
DEMO Customising search results
SEO Wish-list • Independently editable title and metadata elements • Search engine friendly URLs • Navigation in plain text (not JavaScript or Flash) • Ability to edit headings (h1, h2, h3), ALT text, href text and titles • Inclusion of breadcrumb trail • Separate content from coding with CSS and off page scripts • Built in analytics
XML Sitemaps • An XML sitemap is a file that lists all of a site’s URLs along with extra data such as: • URL, URLset, loc, Change frequency, priority, lastmod • XML sitemaps are helpful for ensuring that large, dynamic websites get indexed • Gives the ability to understand which pages have not been indexed • MSN, Yahoo, Google & Ask all use the same XML sitemap protocol • Informing the search engine spiders • Add a line to robots.txt file - Sitemap: <sitemap_location>
Excluding Pages from the Index • It is possible to stop robots indexing pages • Robots.txt file • Robots meta tag
Site Migration • Changing Servers or site architecture • Understand the issues • Manage impact of site migration with pre-planned strategy
Session Summary • Adventure Works uses OOTB SharePoint search features to enhance the user experience • Content • People • Search results can be customized using minimal code • Easy to add additional search functionality (e.g. Federated Search) • It is possible to use SEO techniques to improve external search rankings