A
variety of options exist in SharePoint Server sites for executing
different types of search queries. You can search in SharePoint Server
in many ways. The simplest is exactly like in SPF: You use a search box
at the top of the page that allows you to type and search. Depending on
the site administrator’s configuration of the search settings, you may
have a Scopes of Search drop-down box. Scopes allow you to specify what
you want to search. Site administrators can configure and add scopes,
but a few default scopes are available: All Sites, People, and a This
Site scope in each site (see Figure 1).
The
All Sites scope by default searches on everything excluding people.
Search results might not come only from SharePoint sites. SharePoint
Server has the ability to search on other sources of data outside
SharePoint, and the All Sites scope, by default, searches on that
content.
Note
Depending on the scope you
choose and on how the search administrator set it up, you may be
directed to a different search results page.
Use the Search Center
A search option available in
SharePoint Server is to use the Search Center. This site is dedicated
to searching and is designed to give you a better searching experience.
If your organization is
using the Search Center, you can usually get to it by either finding it
on the navigation bar, usually under the name Search. You can also get
to the Search Center by performing a simple search from any site; by
default, in SharePoint Server you are directed to the Search Center
when you do that.
The Search Center has an option to display several search tabs, or search pages (see Figure 2).
Each of these tabs can be configured to display search results from
different sources of content. The site administrator can create other
tabs, and these tabs can be configured to show different search results.
To switch between tabs, just
click on the tab name. The term you were searching for is automatically
transferred to the new tab, and a search is performed on it.
Tip
By default, the Search
Center site template is configured not to display any ribbons. To see
the ribbons in the Search Center, open the Site Actions menu and select
Show Ribbon.
Tip
By default, the search the
Search Center template is configured not to display any navigational
aids, including the Navigate Up button (refer to Figure 4.6,
where the button is clearly missing from the top of the page). This
makes it difficult to go back to the site you started from. To do that,
you can either click the Back button in your browser or manually change
the address of your browser to the site you want to navigate to.
Conduct a Federated Search
Federated searching
is an optional ability of SharePoint Server that may or may not be
available in the site you are using. The idea of federated searching is
that the search results display results from more than just what
SharePoint is indexing. For example, you can search the Internet. If
you are researching a certain term, such as bicycle,
and would like to see everything related to bicycles from the
SharePoint site and also from Bing search or maybe Google or Yahoo!,
you should use the federated search option (see Figure 3).
Tip
If
the federated search results come from the Internet, you might want to
open them in a new window or a separate tab so that you don’t lose the
search results page.
A site administrator can configure federated searching to show results from many sources outside SharePoint.
Tip
Remember that federated search results may be results from the Internet, and many sites contain unreliable data.
