Users of the SearchStax Site Search solution sometimes ask us how to implement a “federated search” solution, which retrieves pages from multiple websites using one query.
- A classic “federated” search project requires heavy customization at both the front and back end, which is beyond our obligation as the platform provider.
- Depending on your circumstances, Site Search can provide a Crawler-based architecture with the benefits of federation at a fraction of the effort.
- Both Siteccore and Drupal can generate a combined index covering multiple websites. See below.
What is Unified Search?
Unified Search involves a single query against a single index containing data from multiple websites.
Compared to Federated Search, the Unified Search approach provides easier implementation, faster search, better relevance, and a better search experience overall:
- Since the Unified Search queries a single index, the performance is better than searching the multiple systems of a Federated Search.
- With Unified Search, the relevance scores are consistent and comparable across all search results.
- Unified Search produces a better search experience since facets, filtering, sorting, and other key UX features are built on top of the unified index.
See our podcast on Federated Search for more perspective on this topic.
Unified Search with Crawlers
If you are using Site Search and want unified search across multiple websites, consider these facts:
- One Site Search App maintains the Search Experience of a single Solr index (collection).
- All records in that index can be searched simultaneously by a single query.
- One Site Search App can have multiple Crawlers contributing to the same index.
- Each Crawler ingests pages from a different website.
- You can create a unified search experience by defining the same field names and field types across your Crawlers.
Using Crawlers, you can create a unified website search quite easily.
Unified Search with Sitecore
If you are managing your websites using Sitecore, take note of these ideas:
- One Sitecore instance can manage the content of multiple websites.
- Sitecore can generate individual indexes for each included website or create a unified index across all sites.
- Using Site Search Crawlers, you can supplement any of these indexes with additional data from other websites.
- Site Search can then manage the search experience for any of these indexes, including the combined one.
Unified Search with Drupal
If you are managing your websites using Drupal, take note of these ideas:
- One Drupal instance can manage the content of multiple websites. See Multi-site Drupal for more information.
- Drupal can generate individual indexes for each included website or create a unified index across all sites.
- Using Site Search Crawlers, you can supplement these indexes with data from other websites.
- Site Search can then manage the search experience of these indexes, including the combined index.
If you use Sitecore or Drupal with Site Search, a unified index may be within your reach.
Questions?
Do not hesitate to contact the SearchStax Support Desk.