Searchable Content
A commonly-held misperception is that an intranet site can easily be indexed and made searchable by keyword. This is not true in most cases.
An intranet site's searchability depends entirely on two factors:
- What will the searchable contents of the intranet site consist of? Will only the HTML files need to be searchable? Or will there be numerous other documents in multiple formats (.pdf, .doc, .ppt, .xls, etc.) that will also need to be searchable? If Meta information (title, keywords and short description) about the other documents exists within the HTML files (or CMS database), then it might not be necessary to make them searchable as they will still be accessible through a simple search.
- How will the content and documents be stored: inside a CMS, or as individual files?
Once these technology and content formatting factors have been clearly resolved, the Search function can be defined. There are many ways to approach this. Note that there is a "Search Solutions" section later in this chapter.