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Why Improving Search Relevancy Is Important

23 Jan

If they can’t find it, they can’t use it.

The customer has to get to the product before they can put it into their shopping cart.

If you can’t find it and their legal counsel can……<insert own nightmare horror story here>

There are too many results to make sense of what I am finding.

Oops.  You are not authorized to see this document.

What do each of these scenarios have in common?  If the search results aren’t relevant for your business goal, you are losing out.

That is the short answer to the question: Why Improving Search Relevancy is Important.

If the set of results coming back to a user isn’t what they need, then they aren’t relevant — no matter what tests you might run validating keywords, strings, taxonomies, etc.

Improving Search Relevancy is more of a journey rather than a one-time fix.  Changes in the company.  Changes in the customers needs, Changess of season can all impact relevancy.   Often it’s not possible to isolate one area and focus only on that piece.  A change in one area impacts the other areas.  Sometimes there are probllems with the text.  Sometimes the problem is with the user.  Sometimes it’s in the interface and options presented.

Since 1987 I have been experiementing with different search technologies and techniques on how to improve relevancy.  I’ve worked with many different search platforms.  My quest for a good result set began with various paper-based solutions and continued through some early search technologies (anybody ever use askSam?), some home built search engines, and a variety of open source and commercial search engines.

During that time I have run many ad hoc experiements and had conversations with colleagues and users who expressed an interest in the topic.  It’s been quite a ride and the journey continues.

I love working with cultural institutions because they are always willing to go beyond current practices and experiment with “a better way.”  Well, the institutions I’ve worked with are that way (some are rather stuck in the mud when it comes to innovation.)   Often I am able to leverage these innovations in retail and enterprise settings.

Currently I am working on yet another experiement with a cultural institution wanting to provide access to their digital archives.  During the course of this blog I’ll share what I am doing with that project and the results I am getting.  It’s interesting stuff.   I’ll also share some past experiments and thoughts on the topic.

I hope you will join in the conversation and share your own experiences and thoughts.

Cheers!

 
2 Comments

Posted by on January 23, 2013 in Search Relevance

 

Tags: , ,

2 responses to “Why Improving Search Relevancy Is Important

  1. harmanjeet

    April 4, 2013 at 3:37 am

    Hi! Peter

    I am currently doing the same thing.. defining the Search logic for one of the yellow/white pages company. they have FAST ESP as their Search Platform.

    can you share some best practices to start with for the generic search logic..irrespective of Technology.

     
    • Peter Wilkerson

      April 4, 2013 at 10:23 am

      Understanding the problem to be solved from the perspective of the end-user and the business and how search can solve the problem is critical to success.

      Here’s a link to another article that provides more information about other pieces to the search puzzle as I understand it.

      Parsing out the Layers of a Search Solution article

       

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