Eli's Resources for SharePoint Search
Start Here
A wonderful summary of SharePoint Search and Index, how it works, how it is configured, and how WSS and SPS search differ.
Reference
- Managing External Content. Excerpted from the SharePoint Resoure Kit, this is an excellent reference on all aspects of search, not just the crawling of external content.
- Updates to Content Indexes and Content Sources: Differences between Full, Incremental, Incremental (Inclusive), and Adaptive Updates.
- Scoping and Configuring the Content Index for the Site Directory.
- The Gatherer Log.
- iFilters, Noise Word Files, and Thesaurus files.
Developing solutions with SharePoint Search and Index
- Using SharePoint Search with MCMS 2002.
- Using SharePoint Search with Lotus Notes, with secure results.
- Using SharePoint Search with ASP.NET sites.
- Using SharePoint Search with ASP.NET sites, with noise filtering.
Events and Webcasts
DevConnections 2006: PAD303: Search and Indexing Configuration and Administration for SharePoint Portal Server
Optimising SharePoint Search
Mondosoft BehaviorTracking. A fantastic analysis tool to discover how your users search, enabling you to optimise Best Bets, Synonyms, and even your Site Taxonomy. It's not SharePoint specific, so you can also use it with your public website to figure out what customers are looking for, and how. Think on that, the marketing opportunities are endless. It's doesn't seem to be a bargain, but really is compared to what it would cost to develop, and I can think of scads cases where it would pay for itself within months.
Enhance with Web Parts
csegSearch by Carlos Segua Sanz. A Web Part that highlights search terms in the results and parses boolean (and/or) searches.
Cross-Site Search for WSS by CorasWorks. Requires free registration. Read Todd Bleeker's description.
People Finder Web Part by Mark Bower. Mark engineers the Content Editor Web Part to filter search results down to people, pretty cool.
Rip and Replace
If you really don't like the way SharePoint does Search, or want a search engine for WSS without the overhead of SPS, the market leaders are Mondosoft and Coveo. Both are excellent products with strong supporters.
MondoSearch.
Coveo Search.
The Future: Search in SharePoint 12 Office Server
PDC 2005 Video (OFF320).
PDC 2005 Slide deck (OFF320).