Synonyms to Improve Search Experience

Synonyms enhance search experience. For example, end-users don't always use the keywords "install searchunify in salesforce" if they are looking for a document named SearchUnify: Installation Instructions for Salesforce. They run all kinds of queries. For example: "run searchunify in salesforce", "set up searchunify in sf", or "get su for sf" or a variation thereof.

Irrespective of the exact search term, the users expect SearchUnify: Installation Instructions for Salesforce to turn up. Synonyms in NLP Manager makes it possible.

Synonyms maintains a large database of related words and phrases. Each group of related words or phrases is a cluster, which are used to improve search results relevancy. The cluster database in a SearchUnify instance can be huge and it keeps expanding in two ways: 

  1. SearchUnify analyzes conversions. It compares search queries with the titles of clicked search results and then processes them to filter irrelevant words.
  2. Similar term suggestions are extracted from a collocation-sensitive thesaurus for suggesting the most probable synonyms.

As an admin, you can accept or reject the suggestions to create new synonym clusters and edit existing ones. You can also delete an existing cluster.

Creating a Synonyms Cluster

  1. Go to NLP Manager > Synonyms and click Add New.

  2. Enter a keyword and all its synonymous phrases and click . Each synonym is separated from others by a comma.
    NOTE 1. Never use underscores, hyphens, or any non-character symbol in synonyms and acronyms.
    NOTE 2. On adding a keyword or phrase several times, the synonyms for the added keyword or phrase are picked for a pair at random.

  3. The new synonyms cluster will be in List of Synonyms \ Abbreviation. Click Save to keep your changes.

Accepting an Existing (Suggested) Synonyms Cluster

  1. Go to NLP Manager.
  2. Select a cluster in the Suggested Synonyms column by clicking .
  3. Check the terms that shall be part of the cluster and click .

  4. The new cluster will be in List of Synonyms \ Abbreviation. Click Save to keep your changes.

Editing a Synonyms Cluster

You can add or remove one or more terms from a synonyms cluster.

  1. Go to NLP Manager.
  2. Click to edit one cluster or Edit All to open an editor for all clusters. Make changes and then save them.

  3. Click Save to keep your changes.

Deleting a Synonyms Cluster

You can delete an entire cluster.

  1. Go to NLP Manager.
  2. Click to delete synonyms or abbreviations from a cluster or remove a row to delete an entire cluster. Alternatively, you can click Edit All to open an editor for all clusters at once.

  3. Save to keep your changes.

Exact Match

When Exact Match is turned on, multiword synonyms are treated as exact phrases. The highlighted row in the following image is an illustration. kcs is a synonym of knowledge centered service. Exact Match is turned on by default.

On turning off Exact Match, multiword synonyms are split by space. knowledge centered service is treated as three separate terms, instead of one. As a consequence, kcs is not merely a synonym of knowledge centered service, but also of knowledge, centered, and service separately. It doesn't end here. knowledge has its own synonym, KB, in the first row. Therefore, kcs and KB are synonyms as well.