There are many things you can do to improve the speed, accuracy, and relevance of search results for end users.
QuickFinder uses a sophisticated relevance-ranking algorithm. During a search, QuickFinder considers
The number of times words appear in a document
The proximity of words in a multiple word search (the closer the words appear, the more relevant the document will be)
The order of words in a multiple word search (the exact order of words is more relevant)
The location of words in a document (specifically words that appear in a META tag, title, body, header, footer, etc.)
The formatting of words in a document (such as bold, font type and size, etc.)
Query weighting in a multiple query scenario
The number of times words occur within an entire index (for example, the word the has low relevance)
The date of the document.
The depth of the document.
The index, path, and URL weights.
Off-site links.
Synonyms (synonym-derived hits are slightly less relevant by default).
To illustrate how these criteria work, consider the following examples:
Words in bold are more relevant than regular words.
Words contained in the <Title> tag are more relevant than words contained within the <body> tag.
Words contained in the Keywords and Description META tags are more relevant than content words.
Words contained within the <A HREF=> tag used for creating links are less relevant than words outside of this tag.
A document containing a specified search term multiple times is more relevant than a document that contains the search term only once.
A word within a 36-point body text is more relevant than within 4-point footer text.
Documents returned from a query that is weighted at 100% are more relevant than those returned from a 50% weighted query. This is normally used in multi-query searches where each query has a specified weight. For example:
query0=netware&weight0=100&query1=groupwise&weight1=100
In addition to QuickFinder's inherent capabilities, you can further enhance the speed and accuracy of search results by enabling and configuring additional search features.
Sometimes users include irrelevant words in their search strings, such as the conjunctions and, to, and of. These are referred to as stop words. The Stop Words feature of QuickFinder removes all occurrences of stop words from the search string before performing a search, except in the following situations.
Stop words processing has been turned off.
You prepend the word with a plus (+) sign (for example, +the).
They are the only word in the query.
They occur within a phrase.
NOTE:The boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT are treated as regular words if they are lower-case or in quotes and as boolean operators if upper-case. For example:
jack and jill (searches for three words) “jack AND jill” (also searches for three words) jack AND jill (searches for two words)
A set of common stop words are included in QuickFinder, but you can easily add your own, or remove any of the ones we have included. See Editing the Stop-Words List for more information.
Before a virtual search server can use stop words processing, it must first be enabled on the QuickFinder server on the Global Settings page of QuickFinder Server Manager.
On the Global Settings page of QuickFinder Server Manager, click under Default Settings.
Under Query Settings, click next to Enable Stop-Words Processing.
(Optional) Click to modify the default list of stop words, then modify the list.
Click .
On the QuickFinder Server Manager Global Settings page, click in the row of the virtual search server that you want to enable stop words processing on.
Under Settings, click .
Click next to Enable Stop Words Processing.
(Optional) Click to modify the default list of stop words, then modify the list.
Click .
Best Bets is a secondary results list that appears at the top of the search results page and is generated from a special-purpose index, or an index created for the express purpose of generating a Best Bets results list.
A Best Bets list can help users find what they are looking for more quickly by bringing the most popular or most important things to the top of the results page.
A special-purpose index typically contains information about the most popular, most recent, or most important documents.
On the Global Settings page of QuickFinder Server Manager, click under Default Settings.
Click next to Enable Best Bets Search Results.
(Optional) If you want the Best Bets results to show automatically on the search results page, click next to Show Best Bets Searches By Default.
(Optional) In the field, type the maximum number of Best Bets results to be returned on each search results page.
Click .
On the Global Settings page of QuickFinder Server Manager, click in the row of the virtual search server that you want to modify.
Under Settings, click .
Click next to Enable Best Bets Search Results.
Click next to the Default Best Bets Indexes To Search field and select the indexes for use with Best Bets.
If you want the Best Bets results to show automatically on the search results page, click next to Show Best Bets Searches By Default.
In the field, specify the maximum number of Best Bets results to be returned on each search results page.
Click .
When enabled, a synonym enhanced search returns documents in the search results that contain synonyms of the user's original search terms. This can lead users to documents they might not otherwise find because they don't know the exact terminology.
If search results contain the original term, the relevance will not change.If results contain the original term and a synonym, relevance will be boosted. If results contain only synonyms, relevance will be adjusted by the value entered for the Relevance of Synonym-derived Search Results setting, which is usually slightly lower than the normal relevance.
Common synonyms are included in QuickFinder's Synonym List, but you can add new ones and delete existing ones.
When enabling synonym enhanced searches, keep the following things in mind:
A synonym-derived search result can be slightly less relevant than the original term.
A document containing both the original search term and one of its synonyms is more relevant than a document with only the original term.
Administrators control the Synonym list.
Synonyms enhancement is not performed within the FileFilter section of a search.
On the Global Settings page of QuickFinder Server Manager, select a virtual search server from the Virtual Search Server List, then click .
Click under Settings.
Click next to Enable Synonym-enhanced Search Results.
(Optional) To reduce the relevance factor, click to the right of Enable Synonym-enhanced Search Results, then specify a number in the Relevance of Synonym-derived Search Results field.
The purpose of this feature is to keep long queries from timing out. Because a single search term could potentially have many synonyms, this feature lets you reduce the relevance factor, which reduces the total number of hits.
A value below 100 generates a second query containing the synonyms where the query weight is slightly lower than the original query weight. A value of 100 simply adds the synonyms to the user’s original query and gives all words equal weight.
The most effective relevance numbers are in the 90s. Searches are fastest when you set the relevance to 100. However, you loose the benefit of synonym-derived search results when you set this number too high.
Click .
The Synonym List contains a list of default synonyms included with QuickFinder. The synonyms are grouped by sets. A set is one row of synonyms in the list and contains words that are common synonyms of each other word in the same set.
Each word in a set is preceded by a pair of brackets containing a combination of two plus (+) or minus (-) signs, which identifies how the word they precede is to be interpreted.
The first + (or -) before a word specifies whether the other words in the set can use this word as a synonym. For example, if the word adjust was preceded by a +, any other word in the same set could use adjust as a synonym.
The second + (or -) before a word specifies whether that word can use other words in the set as its synonym. For example, if the word adjust was preceded by a -, then adjust could use any other word in the same set as its synonym.
When you have finished making changes by adding or deleting words and assigning the proper + or - symbols, click Apply.
The redirection feature lets you specify key words that redirect the user's Web browser to a specific URL. For example, searching for one net on www.novell.com redirects your browser to a special page designed to emphasize Novell's One Net strategy, rather than returning the search results page.
To enable search term redirection on a QuickFinder server:
On the Global Settings page of QuickFinder Server Manager, click under Default Settings.
Under Query Settings, click next to Enable Search Term Redirection.
(Optional) Click to create (or modify) the list of redirection terms and their associated URLs.
For more information, see Creating or Editing the Redirection URLs List.
Click .
On the Global Settings page of QuickFinder Server Manager, click under Default Settings.
Click to create (or modify) the list of redirection terms and their associated URLs.
In the field, specify a search term.
In the field, specify the associated URL.
(Optional) Select the option if you want the search query to be redirected if a search fails to return any results.
(Optional) If you want additional control over when a search term is redirected to an alternate URL, check the check box and specify one or more of the following conditions:
Select if you want redirection disabled when a specific word or phrase is found in the body of a document returned during a search. From the Conditions drop-down list, select a condition (equals, begins with, contains, or ends with) and specify a word or phrase in the text field at the right.
Select if you want redirection disabled when a specific response code is returned. For example, if a user enters a search term that you have identified for redirection and a 404 Not Found error is returned for any reason, QuickFinder won't redirect the request to the alternate URL. Specify the response code to be used in the text field to the right of the Conditions drop-down list.
Select if you want redirection disabled when a specific word or phrase is found in the header section of a document returned during a search. From the Conditions drop-down list, select a condition (equals, begins with, contains, or ends with) and specify a word or phrase in the text field at the right.
Click .