To make intranet search successful, the right technology must be put in place, and the necessary work undertaken to design and configure its operation.

Once these practical steps have been completed, the next key issue is to resolve who ‘owns’ search on the intranet.

In other words, who has the responsibility for maintaining and improving search, and has the access to the search engine to make the required changes.

Owning search

In most cases, the ownership of search should not reside within IT. The search engine may have been originally installed by the IT department, with the necessary work done to integrate it with the intranet as a whole.

Beyond these initial activities, however, search should be owned by the intranet team, and maintained as part of their overall intranet activities. Only the intranet team is likely to have the right focus, skills and time to ensure that search is effective for staff throughout the organisation.

The intranet team should be given a high degree of access to the search engine itself, with the ability to change configuration files and other settings.

[CM Briefing 2008-21, read the full article]