Enterprise Search, 2nd Edition

Chapter 16. Website Search

It is not uncommon to find that there are no strategic, operational, or managerial connections between the choice and implementation of website search and the enterprise search team. This is either because the website search function is embedded in the chosen CMS and/or because the department owning the website has its own budget and support team. All too often the search feature of websites looks as though it has been added as an afterthought rather than as an integral part of the design. This is most notable in the poor quality of the presentation of search results, with usually inadequate information to enable a site visitor to select a few results that seem to be most relevant to their requirements.

Website search is likely to be of most value to a site visitor when the content on the site meets one or more of the three characteristics often associated with Big Data:

Volume

The amount of content on the site is so large that any information architecture is going to struggle in presenting the content within a reasonable number of clicks (this could well be the case for research sites that are online archives for public sector organizations with content dating back many years into the past)

Velocity

The content changes at such a rate (news or financial information) that it is very difficult to refresh the information architecture to take account of new topic areas and a topic that was hot news two days ago has all but vanished

Variety

The content of ...