'The Sleeping beast in web projects':TERMINALFOUR’s Brian Colhoun asks why is web search often left to the end of a web project? Is Google the best one? How can you make it better using TERMINALFOUR Site Manager!

1. Web Search

2. Massively expensive HUGE Enterprise search systems
ACTUAL REAL
WORLD REQUIREMENTS
Open source and affordable out of the box systems
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3. (Plus pop culture references and
CAPS for dramatic effect)
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4. One of the best Search
Engineers in the world.
(But in fairness a bit
of a douchebag)
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5. Why doesn’t mine look like that?
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6. Preparation
Preparation
Preparation
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7. 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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8. 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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9. 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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10. 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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11. 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
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Pricing model
Speed
Relevance tuning
Navigation and filtering
Federated search
Linguistic toolset
Search analytics
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13. #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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14. #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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15. #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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16. Forget about search!!!
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17. •
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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18. • 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
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19. • 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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22. Includes clickable tags based on metadata,
e.g. “Emergencies”
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23. Is Google they the only solution?
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24. There are others, but some are a bit brand new …
Out of the Box
Open Source
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
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25. 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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26. 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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28. Sample standard template
• Sample standard template
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• Sample standard templat
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29. Sample Point
• Sample Point
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30. 1st Col
2nd Col
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2nd Col
3rd Col
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