Out of the box, most search engines are poorly designed for the needs of general intranet searchers. Cluttered with complex features, these search tools can…

Search doesn’t work out of the box, and up to 80% of the default functionality must be stripped out for general search users.

The rise of enterprise search has put an increasing focus on searching ever broader collections of content and documents within organisations. While enterprise search projects generally start with simple intranet search, attention quickly moves to searching document management systems, collaboration tools, business systems and fileshares. Underpinning this work is the belief (or hope) that business value will be delivered to users by deploying a more extensive search tool. Unfortunately it is often the case that searching more is not better than searching less. This briefing will look at some of the challenges involved in implementing enterprise search, and provide practical

Driving enterprise search to cover ever more content does not necessarily deliver better results.

Search is broken on many websites and intranets. Search results pages are confusing and cluttered, and users can't easily find what they are looking for. It is tempting to think that this is a technology problem. Certainly, if there is a very old or very limited search engine in place, this will need to be replaced with a modern solution. The danger, however, is that it can be believed that simply purchasing and installing a new search engine will solve all these problems. The reality is that search doesn't work 'out-of-the-box', and that there is a small (but vital) piece

Out-of-the-box, search doesn’t work, and there is a small (but vital) piece of work needed to design and tune the search solution.

Search is often the greatest source of frustration on intranets. Irrelevant results, hard to read results pages and 'untitled document' entries plague many intranet searches. With the size and scope of most intranets, search is a key tool used by staff to find information. While the expectation is that it should be quick and easy to find information on the intranet, this is often not the case. Beyond generating staff frustration, these problems can reduce trust and confidence in the search tool. More broadly, the issues with search may be having a significant impact on the usage of the intranet

This article outlines nine steps that can be taken by all intranet teams to improve the effectiveness of search, covering both design and under-the-hood changes.

Organisations are looking for a wide range of capabilities when selecting a new content management system (CMS), and search is often one of the desired features. Almost every site requires a search tool, whether it

At the most fundamental level, search should work like magic: it should always give staff the information they need, even if they only enter a…