That was one of the questions the UIE research group asked themselves when conducting a study of on-site search. One of the things they discovered was that the choice of search engine was not as important as the implementation. Most of the big search vendors were found in both the top sites and the bottom sites.
So even though the choice of vendor influences what functionality you can achieve and the control you have over your content there are other things that matter, maybe even more. Because the best search engine in the world will not work for you unless you configure it properly.
According to Jared Spool there are four kinds of search results:
- ‘Match relevant results’ – returns the exact thing you were looking for.
- ‘Zero results’ – no relevant results found.
- ‘Related results’ – i.e. search for a sweater and also get results for a cardigan. (If you know that a cardigan is a type of sweater you are satisfied. Otherwise you just get frustrated and wonder why you got a result for a cardigan when you searched for a sweater).
- ‘Wacko results – the results seem to have nothing in common with your query.
So what did the best sites do according to Jared Spool and his colleagues?
They returned match relevant results, and they did not return 0 results for searches.
So how do you achieve that then? We have previously written about the importance of content refinement and information quality. But what do you do when trying to achieve good search results with your search engine? And what if you do not have the time or knowledge to do a proper content tuning process?
Well, the search logs are a good way to start. Start looking at them to identify the 100 most common searches and the results they return. Are they match relevant results? It is also a good idea to look at the searches that return zero results and see if there is anything that can be done to improve those searches as well.
Jared Spool and his colleagues at UIE mostly talk about site search for e-commerce sites. For e-commerce sites bad search results mean loss of revenue while good search results hopefully give an increase in revenue (if other things such as check out do not fail). Working with intranet search the implications are a bit different.
With intranet search solutions the searches can be more complex when information not items, is what users are searching for. It might not be as easy to just add synonyms or group similar items to achieve better search results. I believe that in such a complex information universe, proper content tuning is the key to success. But looking at the search logs is a good way for you to start. And me and my colleagues here at Findwise can always help you how to get the most out of your search solution.