EPiServer World Needs a New Search Function!
One of the most important functions on our site is Search and we are painfully aware of the fact that it currently doesn't work very well. But this will hopefully not be the case for much longer.
The EPiServer World Team works, like many of you, as a Scrum team and in the next sprint (starting on Monday) we will start the implementation of a new search engine on the site.
We have gone through a pre-study phase and now have a good overview of what we want to do and where we want to go with the Search. One of the most important things that we have talked to various users on the site about is the ability to take action directly on the search result. If you, for example, are searching for a specific download, you want to be able to download directly from the search result. This is definitely something that we want to provide you with, and of course the results need to efficiently give you correct suggestions.
New Framework Design
We will also be implementing a new design for the navigation and general framework, with the aim of creating a brighter and airier feel for users. The start page will be restructured to focus more on the main areas that are most frequently used according to site statistics - Blogs, Forum Topics and Downloads. Our main goal is to make tools and information readily available as quickly as possible to help you implement your solutions both efficiently and painlessly.
Check out the sketches for the new search results page and framework below.
I think the search functionality don’t have to be fancy it has to work (the absolute best way to search on your site today is done in Google with the site prefix, eg. site:world.episerver.com Lena).
I see that you want to use categorized search that nice – but is it necessary I find almost direct searching 160 millions of sites without categorizing and in the most cases I find what I want direct on the first page.
In my opinion the main problem with today’s search functionality is the SERP, you have to go back to the search page all the time after watching a page to look on the next page, if I designing a new search functionality for a site where I can control the functionality I should implement the search result in a popup that remains on the page I viewing.
Thanks for your feedback Mattias.
I totally agree with you on the categories. However, when we have talked to visitors they want to be able to exclude for example Forum Topics in the result list. But the categories should only be a secondary help for the search result. You should get good and relevant search results directly in the list depending on your search phrase.
We will definitely take your suggestions regarding how to reach the items into consideration.
/ Lena Spegel
Will the new search use standard EPiServer CMS Search, or a third party search product?
As the site is built on both EPiServer CMS and EPiServer Community we will add a third party search product.
/ Hello Nick