RE: Question about web-based search options

["Neumann, Eileen" <ENeuman -at- franklintempleton -dot- ca>]

Hi Kay,
For the last company I worked for, we had extensive search capabilities for our Intranet site. The search results weren't in a portal format, just a list. The search engine was very well used but widely complained about as not being as effective as it should be.

A huge problem that I saw was the perception of what a search engine can do for you on the part of the folks maintaining the Intranet. The perception seemed to be that it's like a car or vacuum cleaner - that is, something that you spend big bucks on, but then basically just plug in or rev up and go. Search Engines aren't like that. They need tweaking on the installation end. We were lucky that way, because there was a responsive administrator that could help. However, the first step was realizing that the thing could be tweaked.

The other major place search engines need human intervention is on the HTML pages themselves, as Geoff points out. You need to understand some of how the engine is set up, so that you can have it return what the user wants. You need to index the pages manually using meta tags so that the right pages get returned. You need a decent description of your pages so the searcher can see what a page is about. You need to take care that your title tags are in good shape. We started working on some of this, but as it was a very large intranet, we just made a tiny dent in what should be done.

A search engine will work best if the structure of the Web site is sound. It's not a substitute for logical design, logical index pages, and great navigation. It's definitely not a simple fix for a convoluted web site. 

That being said, search is still a great thing, IMO, and very interesting. Just not that easy to get working well. 


Eileen Neumann
Business Rules and Procedures
Franklin Templeton Investments




-----Original Message-----
From: Kay Ethier [mailto:kethier -at- travelthepath -dot- com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 2:44 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Question about web-based search options


Hello:

I'm researching options for adding Search capabilities to websites. 

I've checked out some of the ready-to-go search features provided by
google and others, as well as options for "build it yourself" searching
(requiring scripting/programming expertise).

What I'd like to hear is how companies are really implementing Search
for their online content.  Does your company provide extensive corporate
or technical information on its website?  How do users search the
content?  Is the information retrieved as search results or as
"customized" pages served up (portal?) based on the search?  Any
information that you can share would be appreciated.  I'll write up the
results for anyone who is interested.

Thank you in advance for sharing,

Kay



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