Steps to implement a search

This post discuss about the steps to implement search in any applications.

Index of search implementation blog can be found at this location

Set up

Set up of the search engine and indexing options are considered as first step in search implementation.

• Hosting: Hosting the search tool.
• Indexing: Indexing the data.
• Index frequency : Configuring the index.  (Daily, Monthly)

 
Configure
This step includes any configuration related to search.

• Metadata - Used for faceting, sorting, ranking, relevance.
• Breadcrumbs - for a better navigation.
• Pagination - for a better navigation.
• Recent Searches - Search assist.
• Search suggestions(Did you mean) - Search assist.
• Auto complete - Search assist.

Fine-tune
Once search implementation is done,we need to fine tune the search by analysing the results.

• Promotion: Normal, Based on search result, we can promote.
• Dictionaries : Configure for better results.
• Banners : any organizational promotion.
• Redirects : Send user to a page.

General considerations to choose your future search platform.

Search Management and Maintenance -
Thinking about previous data migration and future search upgrades.
User experience -
Different user interface for range of use cases.
Content -
Which resides in file repositories, document management system, database or CRM applications.
Classifying and unifying cross system data -
Content processing and defining metadata for new index.
Hybrid Scenarios -
Search data from on premise and cloud.
Result set customization -
Efficient way of displaying results.
Ranking & Relevance -
Fine tuning the order of results.
The migration process -
Provide transparent, solid experience to the end users, Educate the users about new system.

Read More

Steps to implement any search technology
AEM Dispatcher, why it  is needed?
AEM Desktop App
Figure out the best search technology or tool
Steps to implement search in Solr
Quality of Search - fine tuning search implementation
FAQ on search implementation