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The key to searching is relevance. In other words, if you type in a search query, do you get back the results you are looking for? The out-of-the-box search functionality that MOSS provides does a pretty good job without any tuning, but it isn't perfect. This article will explain a few simple tips that anyone can easily do to improve the relevance of their content, and best of all, it doesn't require any specialized SharePoint knowledge.

Use descriptive titles: The title field carries a heavier relevance weighting than most other fields, so it is crucial that documents and Web pages have descriptive titles. For example, it is more effective to call a document "2009 Sales Report.docx" as opposed to something like "009SR.docx." If a query were run on the term "sales report" the search engine would likely return a document with either name in the results, but the descriptively named document would rank higher because of the title.

Note : In SharePoint, there is a “Title” property for files in document libraries. In the case of Microsoft Office files, this is automatically populated from the Title property in the document (File > Properties... in 2003, Office menu > Prepare > Properties in 2007). For other file types, this will tend to be blank by default.

This title is used as the "name" of the file in search results. If it is blank, then they fall back to using the file name.

It’s a good idea to encourage people to fill this in (either in the document itself or in SharePoint) as you can make it more friendly and descriptive than the file name.

Use spaces in file names: Although many of us have been told not to include spaces in file names, for documents stored in SharePoint, adding spaces to the file names of documents and Web pages will help them to show up more often in search results. Why? Simply because it is easier for the indexer to break the words apart if there are spaces in them.

Pay the most attention to the three most heavily weighted fields: Title, Author and File Name fields have heavier weighting in the overall relevance calculation. If you take better care of the data that goes in here, it will immediately improve your relevance. Don't go too crazy with mile-long names for things, but create file names that mean something to someone.

Relevant text in hyperlinks: I'd guess there are going to be at least a few links to various documents or other Web pages across your site. For these links, SharePoint will give a higher ranking to links with relevant text. For example, on your home page, if there were some text that read, "To find out more about SharePoint in our company, click here", there isn't anything wrong with this type of link.

But the name of the game is relevance. In this example, MOSS considers this type of link less relevant than if you were to include more specific text in the hyperlink. A better way to link to the same content would be: "If you want to learn more about SharePoint please, visit the IT site". The key here is that link describes the type of content it is linking to.

Keep important content closer to the top: As a rule of thumb, the more /'s there are in the URL for a piece of content, the lower the relevance it will be assigned. Conversely, content stored closer to the root of a site is perceived to be more important since the root of a site collection is considered an "authoritative source." (The location of authoritative pages can be modified through the search administration screen.)

It doesn't take much to improve the relevance of your content. There's no magic here; it simply takes an understanding of what SharePoint considers to be the most relevant content, so use that to your advantage.

Happy searching !!!