Web Search

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Massively expensive HUGE Enterprise search systems

Open source and affordable out of the box systems

ACTUAL REAL WORLD REQUIREMENTS

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(Plus pop culture references and CAPS for dramatic effect)

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One of the best Search Engineers in the world.

(But in fairness a bit of a douchebag)

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Why doesn’t mine look like that?

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Preparation Preparation Preparation

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A dish can only ever be as good as its ingredients

A search result can only ever be as good as … The content

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You wouldn’t do this with your expensive ingredients

So why should your content, valuable documents, and site information be any different???

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This is what I believed before…

• It should be integral to site redevelopment

• It should be included in design

• Start indexing right away!!!

• Doesn’t matter what you’re indexing

• Results must look sexy/jazzy/<other useless design related instruction lexicon>

• Should be in the RFP or Tender

• “We’ll just use Google … ”

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This is what I believe now….

• It should be integral to design to

– Your content strategy

– Your customer/student/resident engagement plan

– Ok, and maybe you should design it somewhat

• It should be included in design first your content strategy

• Start indexing right away!!! When you’re happy with your content and metadata

• Doesn’t matter what you’re indexing

– OF COURSE IT DOES!!

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Now

• Results must look sexy/jazzy/<other useless design related instruction lexicon> be accurate, useful, complete and THEN sexy/jazzy/<other useless design related instructional lexicon>

• Should be in it’s own RFP or Tender

• “We’ll just use Google … ”

– You have choices

– I’ve done the research for you, hold tight!

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• System architecture • Performance • File formats • Integration • Access control • Features • Implementation

• Pricing model • Speed • Relevance tuning • Navigation and filtering • Federated search • Linguistic toolset • Search analytics

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#3 System architecture

• Where does the application “sit”? • Can indexers/connectors physically reach the

documents you want to search? • Cloud based technology?

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#2 Implementation

• What sort of expertise is required for installation?

• What level of control do you have over look and feel?

• How is it configured? • How is it maintained? • How does the vendor handle training and

support?

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#1 (not on the list) Who are they?

• Where did the company/technology come from?

• Where are they based? • What are they passionate about? (fingers

crossed it’s search ;) ) • Look ‘em up on linkedin, twitter, facebook or

wherever they are referenced online

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Forget about search!!!

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• It’s not about search, it’s about the content • Site Manager is the perfect web search optimiser. You have total

control over your content and metadata. • Key values such as metadata, page titles, dates MUST be consistent

across all pages to make them valuable. Make these compulsory when adding content. Course search is a great example.

• Know well in advance what you DO NOT want users to find as most

search engines will crawl everything so keep your content neat and tidy.

• Remember mobile search needs fewer result details!

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• Set time aside to review search results, but go to Site Manager to make the changes first, not the search engine.

• Imagine the search engine as a dummy just clicking and consuming

EVERYTHING on your site. • Invest time in optimising your content as much as possible in Site

Manager which will help; • Navigation • Accessibility • SEO

• We have resold and used many search engines

• Google Custom, Ultraseek, Exalead, Lucene, SOLR/Nutch, GSA, ISYS…...

• Clients have used many others.

• We saw course search yesterday from Mark

• Currently we partner with PolySpot for web search

• Range of versions (free, fee, refer to PolySpot)

• See Client Support, PS and Sales for options

• However we are not “search experts” at heart

• “Ah, search! Talk to Brian”

• You may want to consider others.

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Includes clickable tags based on metadata, e.g. “Emergencies”

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Is Google they the only solution?

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There are others, but some are a bit brand new …

Because I like you, I’ve done a review of these and you’ll be sent it by the end of the presentation via the magic of the interwebs

Out of the Box Open Source

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That’s You That Is!

Your content is your food. TERMIANLFOUR Site Manager is your kitchen

Your results are “served” up by your search engine

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Make sure you serve up the best results you can. Your search results are as valuable as your brand and your content. If results are not juicy and enticing, will your users come back?

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Sample standard template

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Sample Point

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