Share Point Search

[markknowsley]

I saw a demo by a company called Ontolica today. They have developed two web parts which vastly improve the search results of a Share Point site.

I've also been reading some opinions which state that all the functionality is included and just needs exploiting.

Does anyone have an opinion on this? And does anyone know where I can find some information about improving the search results of our Share Point site - I've been hearing about things such as Best Bet. Google searches on this matter don't produce too much.

 

[ouzojd]

This probably isnt much help to you but its just my thoughts as I did look into it a little bit.

My understanding is that wss sites can have a boolean search as in 'and' 'or' included in the search if you change a couple of stored procedures. I didnt do it because it seems that if you start playing around with the backend of the db it is no longer supported by MS but more importantly patches or service packs may in the future make your modified stored procs stop working all together which would make for some unhappy users.

If you go a 3rd party app and it works and you can pay for it go for it but make sure they provide support for their own app if MS puts out a service pk.

I think most users adjust after a couple of days to not having a google like search anyway, but at the end of the day it is your call.

PS: does it do SPS and WSS?

 

[markknowsley]

Yes, that was one of the advantages of it. The web parts install on both SPS and WSS and essentially elbow the existing share facility out of the way.

Should I be surprised that there's not more development information out there? I can't be the only person who wonders about this stuff. And a contractor from another office recently commented to me that their Share Portal was pretty hopeless because no - one could find any documents on it there were that many.

 

[ouzojd]

I think the initial design of it plays a big part especially the layout of the areas, if this is done in a clear logical fashion, users can at least find the top level area of where there document should be and then select search this topic instead of all sources.

Good Luck with it, keep us informed of any developments, good or bad as when other people consider something like this they can weigh it upp for themselves.