Tips for Search Success - SPSNJ 2013

10 TIPS FOR MANAGING SHAREPOINT SEARCH

Mike Oryszak

@next_connect

10/5/2013

Mike Oryszak - @next_connect 2

PRINCETON SHAREPOINT USER GROUP

• Different SharePoint discussions each month on various topics. Announced on meetup.com

• Meets 4th Wednesday of every month

• 6pm – 8pm

• Infragistics Office

• 2 Commerce Drive, Cranbury, NJ

• http://www.meetup.com/princetonSUG

• http://www.princetonsug.com

http://www.meetup.com/princetonSUG

http://www.meetup.com/princetonSUG

http://www.princetonsug.com/


THANK YOU EVENT

SPONSORS• Platinum & Gold

sponsors have tables here in the Fireside Lounge

• Please visit them and inquire about their products & services

• To be eligible for prizes make sure your bingo card is signed by all Platinum/Gold


About Me

• Sr SharePoint Solution Architect

• Microsoft SharePoint Server MVP

• Developer and Architect with MS stack since 1996

• Working with SharePoint since 2002

• Raleigh, NC Area

Contact Info• Blog - http://www.mikeoryszak.com

• Twitter - @Next_Connect

• Email – [email protected]

• LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeloryszak

http://www.mikeoryszak.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeloryszak

http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeloryszak


SESSION OVERVIEW

• Search Concepts Overview

• 10 Tips for Managing SharePoint Search

• Wrap-up and Questions


SEARCH CONCEPTS OVERVIEW

10 Tips for Managing SharePoint Search


HOW DOES IT WORK?

• Crawling

• A scheduled activity that processes

• Content – Full text search

• Meta-data – Content Classes, Site, List Columns

• Security – Content ACL

• Index

• Processed info

• Extremely fast compared to querying source content

• Provides security trimmed results

• Possible to have more than one


IFILTERS AND SPECIAL FILE FORMATS

• Makes indexing proprietary document formats possible

• PDFs

• CHM Help Files

• DWF/DWG Engineering Documents

• Zip/Rar Archives

• Must install iFilters for non MS Office products

• PDF included with SharePoint 2013


CONTENT CLASSIFICATION

• Content Classes

• Searches based on Object Type

• Great for filtering down the potential resultset

• Examples:

• SPSPeople

• STS_Site

• STS_Web

• STS_list_[doccumentlibrary] *

• STS_listitem_[documentlibrary] *

* Note name in brackets can be replaced with template name


MANAGED PROPERTIES

• Managed Properties

• Can be used to query against a specific attribute

• 100+ by default, more can be added

• Examples:

• Author

• ContentType

• CreatedBy

• LastModifiedTime

• DocId

• FirstName


10 TIPS



CONTENT SOURCES

• Define the Content Sources

• SharePoint sites

• SharePoint User Profiles

• Exchange Public Folders

• Shared Network Drives

• Web Sites

• Business Data (with Business Connectivity Services)

• Each Content Source Definition can specify multiple locations

• Can have multiple definitions for each type


CONTENT SOURCES

• Tip #1 – Enterprise Search should contain all relevant content, not just SharePoint content.

• Tip #2 – Organize Content Sources based on your expected crawl frequency.


SEARCH SCOPES

• Search Scopes Help to Narrow the Index

• Administrators define rules to filter down the results

• Rules can specify the…

• Content Source

• Location of Content

• Type of Content

• Property Values

• Examples:

• All Sites

• People

• Customer Service

• Document Vault


SEARCH SCOPES

• Tip #3 – Define meaningful Search Scopes to help people search with context.


SETTING CRAWL SCHEDULES

• Schedule Set For Each Content Source Definition

• Can set schedule for full crawl

• Can set schedule for incremental crawl

• Multiple Schedules Allows for…

• Scheduling dynamic content more frequently

• Splitting up the crawl process


SETTING CRAWL SCHEDULES

• Tip #4 – Schedule incremental crawls frequent enough to provide relevant content.

• Tip #5 – Monitor crawl impact on farm and avoid full crawls during peak usage.


MONITOR INDEX SIZE &CRAWL DURATION

• Crawl times influenced by a number of factors

• Size of the index

• Number and power of servers running search components

• Limit of 10m items per index partition; I normally scale out sooner at about 7m

• As the index size grows, the time it takes to crawl increases

• Partitioning the index will split it across multiple servers and cut the crawl times

• If it takes 5+ days to complete a full crawl there could be service interuption


MONITOR INDEX SIZE &CRAWL DURATION

• Tip #6 – When the Full Crawl duration(s) becomes too high, review application server resources and consider partitioning your index.


AUTHORITATIVE CONTENT

• Adjust Relevancy Ranking

• Promote Important or Authoritative Sites/Pages

• Demote less important Sites/Pages

• Examples:

• Enterprise Content versus Workgroup Content

• Demote legacy archived content and shares


AUTHORITATIVE CONTENT

• Tip #7 – Identify and promote most important and authoritative content and demote less important content.


KEYWORDS, SYNONYMS, & BEST BETS

• Map Keywords to Synonyms and Best Bets

• Synonyms can help link industry or company terms

• Abbreviations

• Aliases

• Best Bets are like Paid Advertising

• Managed at the Site Collection Level

• Site Collection Admin


KEYWORDS, SYNONYMS, & BEST BETS

• Tip #8 – Use Synonyms and Best Bets to increase findability and accommodate industry or company terms.


REVIEW SEARCH REPORTS

• Reports Provide Info On• Query Frequency

• Top Queries

• Search Keywords

• Failed Queries

• Best Bet Usage

• Best Bet Suggestions

• Managed at the Site Collection Level • Site Collection Admin


REVIEW SEARCH REPORTS

• Tip #9 – Use the Search Reports to improve relevancy and reduce the number of zero results.


INTERACTING WITH SEARCH

• The Search Center is the primary interface for users to interact with Search

• The Search Center is made up of numerous web parts for interacting with search

• Can have one or more search sites

• Can use the web parts on regular web part pages as well

• Every site collection can specify a default search center or results page

• Results pages can be specialized, with additional filters specified


INTERACTING WITH SEARCH

• Tip #10 – Plan out the expected search behaviors and identify the search destinations.


WRAP-UP & QUESTIONS



10 TIPS REVIEW

• Tip #1 – Enterprise Search should contain all relevant content, not just SharePoint content.

• Tip #2 – Organize Content Sources based on your expected crawl frequency.

• Tip #3 – Define meaningful Search Scopes to help people search with context.

• Tip #4 – Schedule incremental crawls frequent enough to provide relevant content.

• Tip #5 – Monitor crawl impact on farm and avoid full crawls during peak usage.


10 TIPS REVIEW

• Tip #6 – When the Full Crawl duration(s) becomes too high, review application server resources and consider partitioning your index.

• Tip #7 – Identify and promote most important and authoritative content and demote less important content.

• Tip #8 – Use Synonyms and Best Bets to increase findability and accommodate industry or company terms.

• Tip #9 – Use the Search Reports to improve relevancy and reduce the number of zero results.

• Tip #10 – Plan out the expected search behaviors and identify the search destinations.


RESOURCES

• MSDN SharePoint 2010 Resource Center

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/bb964529.aspx

• Enterprise Search Planning

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263400.aspx

• Keys to Planning for SharePoint Search

• http://www.mikeoryszak.com/sharepoint/keys-to-planning-for-sharepoint-search

• Content Classes in SharePoint Search

• http://www.mikeoryszak.com/sharepoint/content-classes-in-sharepoint-search

• My Search Blog Posts

• http://www.mikeoryszak.com/tag/search

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/bb964529.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263400.aspx

http://www.mikeoryszak.com/sharepoint/keys-to-planning-for-sharepoint-search

http://www.mikeoryszak.com/sharepoint/content-classes-in-sharepoint-search

http://www.mikeoryszak.com/tag/search


QUESTIONS & FEEDBACK

Tips for Search Success - SPSNJ 2013

Technology

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