We would like to bring to your attention this Blog by Johan Olivier, Relate Technologies, South Africa . Johan is a speaker at the European SharePoint Conference 2011 in Berlin 17th-20th October.To find out more on the European SharePoint Conference please click here

Introduction:

I recently developed a SharePoint 2010 solution which includes an advanced search web part which allows the users to perform enterprise searches and view the returned results in a graphical rich representation.

As an architect I want to ensure that the search results that are returned to the user match what the user wanted to find and that the results that are returned on the first page are the most relevant, so the user does not have to look through several pages of results to find the best matches for their search. This is called Search Relevancy.

It is very important to realize the difference between Sorting and Ranking. In my own words I would describe Sorting as the process or arranging objects according to a specific attribute of the item. An example would be the books in a library.

Ranking is where an item takes precedence over other items based on a combination of attributes. Examples of this would be how tools in a workshop are arranged, how equipment is arranged in an E.R. room, how individuals are ranked based on the role they play in the military, or even how food items are arranged in the supermarket. One realize from these examples that there is no single property which can be used to determine the ranking of such items and that Ranking is based on the importance an item has in a given situation.

The Role of the SharePoint Architect:

Architects and developers place a lot of focus during development to ensure that search engine works well. Performance and Accuracy of search results are normally the main focus point.

Providing a comprehensive search solution requires that the architect considers the search experience from the end-user point of view

The end-user is not really concerned about what happens on the server and will most likely not appreciate the effort which goes into building robust search engines.

Management spend up to 27% of their time looking for information and when using the Search functionality in your SharePoint solution only one question will be asked; "Did I find what I was searching for on the first page of the results?" If the item the user searched for is not part of the first 10 search result items then then user will most likely believe the item does not exist in the system

To view the full blog by John click here