Basic Search Client Configurations

Search client configurations enable admins to customize the main search page. They can activate typeahead, turn on search recommendations, and even display a knowledge graph. All the features on are explained next.

Enter Platform Name

The very first setting. It allows admins to edit the existing name of their search client. Descriptive names are a great aid when you are responsible for managing several clients.

Enter Base URL

The login page of your SearchUnify instance is the base URL of your search client. Its role is to maintain communication between the platform where the search client is installed and the content sources managed with the instance.

No. of Autocomplete Results

Help users find what they want with a powerful implementation of typeahead. Select from the drop down the number of suggestions that to be displayed.

Special Characters Search

When used with an # in queries such as # search + client, + acts an advanced search operator. The complete list of such operators can be found on Use Advanced Search. The exclusive use of + as an operator creates a problem. What if your users want to find documents on, let's say, C++? To cater to such users, you can turn on Special Characters Search. Besides +, you can make the following characters searchable with a toggle.

№	Searchable Character
1	Ampersand (&)
2	At Sign (@)
3	Greater Than (>)
4	Less Than (<)
5	Dollar ($)
6	Percentage (%)
7	Caret (^)
8	Equals (=)
9	Colon (:)
10	Full stop(.)
11	Forward slash (/)
12	Hyphen (-)
13	Plus (+)
14	Asterisk (*)

Any of these characters can be searched outside advanced search queries; 5 > 2 works but # 5 > 2 and # 5 > 2 OR 3 don't. There is an exception to the rule. Special characters can work inside advanced search when they are enclosed in quotes. So, # "5 > 2" works.

Recommendations

Turning on Recommendations adds a section to the search results page where relevant articles are displayed. The articles are different for each query and their relevancy is measured by how many users click them after a query. If a lot of users click articles, X, Y, and Z after a query Q, then X, Y, and Z will populate the Recommendations section for the query Q. Users can find the sections by scrolling down a search results page.

Preview Search Results

Browse any result in preview mode. When it's on, users can click to view results in a small pane without leaving the search results page.

NOTE.

The preview pane shows up only when the results are hosted on the same domain and sub domain as the search client, YouTube, or Vimeo. If the search client URL is https://help.domain.com/search.htm, then preview works for all the articles hosted on https://help.domain.com/, YouTube, and Vimeo.

Preview panes are available on mobile and Salesforce search clients as well.

To turn it on, open the client for editing, go to Configurations, toggle Preview Search Results to the right, and Save. Repeat this for all the search clients for a uniform experience.

Preview Search Results improves the Conversions rate because each preview is a conversion.

Recent Searches

It stores a history of search queries in browser cache and suggests the terms from the history when users are trying to run an old search again.

Highlight Viewed Results

Set up a different color for the visited hyperlinks. When turn on, it changes the color of clicked results from the default black to violet, which gives a clue to users to avoid repeat clicks on already consulted results.

The clicked document stays highlighted, depending upon the user's browser. The values for the most popular browsers are: 90 days in Google Chrome, 180 days in Mozilla Firefox, 365 days in Apple Safari, and 999 days in Microsoft Edge.

Similar Search Recommendations

Similar to Recommendations (point 3). However, instead of suggesting articles, keywords are recommended. Someone searching for "data repositories" on SearchUnify Docs could be suggested "content sources" which is the company term for the server where data-to-be-indexed is stored. Similar Search Recommendations analyzes data from multiple users before suggesting a keyword. The suggestions are stored in your browser's cache, so they might be different on the devices you use.

Did You Mean?

Guide users when they misspell with relevant suggestions from Did You Mean. The feature comes with a standard dictionary and can be taught in-house jargon. Check out Implement Auto-Correct with Did You Mean for details.

Redirection URL

The web address where the crawler is directed to if the main URL is inaccessible.

Knowledge Graph

Give answers right on the search page with a knowledge graph, which supports audio-visual content as well. To turn it on, toggle the button to the right and then go to Configure a Knowledge Graph

.