Using query expansion to widen searches, Working with query expansion files – Google Search Appliance Creating the Search Experience User Manual
Page 58
Google Search Appliance: Creating the Search Experience
Best Practices
58
You can add URL patterns at any time, and they will be immediately removed from the served results.
You can also delete the URL patterns at any time to return those patterns to the served results
immediately.
For complete information about using the Remove URLs tab, click Help Center > Serving > Front Ends
> Remove URLs in the Admin Console.
The remove URLs feature affects results only. It does not remove URLs from the index. To remove URLs
from the index, enter them in the Do Not Crawl URLs with the Following Patterns section on the
Crawl and Index > Crawl URLs page in the Admin Console. For more information about removing URLs
from the index, refer to Administering Crawl.
Using Query Expansion to Widen Searches
The Google Search Appliance can automatically expand search terms to include other terms. This
expansion is based on synonyms, or alternative terms for the original search term, as well as inflection
variants, and related terms. The search appliance includes the following types of query expansion files:
•
Built-in query expansion files, which you cannot download or edit
•
Preconfigured local query expansion files, which you can download and edit
Additionally, you can add your own customized local query expansion files to a search appliance.
Whenever a term matches a built-in synonym, the query is expanded to include the synonym. For
example, suppose a user searches with the term “video.” Because this term matches a built-in synonym
(“DVD”), the search is expanded to include the term DVD.
You can add your own set of meaningful terms to be added as synonyms. When query expansion is
enabled, all synonyms on a search appliance apply to all front ends. To add terms for a specific front
end, consider adding related queries instead (see “Using Related Queries to Suggest Alternative
Searches” on page 43).
There are two steps to adding synonyms to query expansion:
1.
“Working with Query Expansion Files” on page 58
2.
“Setting the Query Expansion Policy for a Front End” on page 63
Working with Query Expansion Files
This section describes tasks for managing query expansion files for a Google Search Appliance,
including:
•
“Using Preconfigured Local Query Expansion Files” on page 59
•
“Using Customized Local Query Expansion Files” on page 59
•
•
To manage query expansion files, use the Serving > Query Settings page in the Admin Console. For
complete information about using the Query Settings page, click Help Center > Serving > Query
Settings in the Admin Console.