Understanding Site Search: A Four Part Series

As a part of a recent series on Blend Interactive’s feed about on-site search and tracking, I put together a four-part post about the nature of site search: how it’s used, why it matters, and how to take advantage of it within your organization.

• Part One: How Does Search Work? – Before we can make decisions about site search, we need to understand how it works. In part one, we look at how search works.
• Part Two: What Content Will You Search? – You might want to search it all. Or, you might want to search a small section. In part two, we look at how to choose what’s indexed in your site search.
• Part Three: How Will You Organize Results? – When results are displayed in your site search, will they be relevant? In part three, we talk about organizing and displaying results.
• Part Four: Choosing the Right Solution – How do you choose the right search engine for your site search? In part four, we look at making the final decision.

In addition to the series, I put together a glossary of site search terms.

Developing a plan for effective site search can seem overwhelming, especially because it relies on a set of terms not used much outside of the web design and development industry. This need for clarification around vocabulary — and our article on site search requirements — led us to create this site search glossary.

Check out the entire series over at Blend’s blog.