Pearls of MOSSy Wisdom

Hi Tim, Am not using Microsoft Search with our install, so don't know a huge amount about it, but is it not possible to remove the phrases "Scroll Up" and "Scroll Down" from being counted in the relevancy ranking with some sort of Noise Word list? The search provider we are using allows this, which means simply that they are not considered in ranking, but are still valid for use in a search query (where as a stop word is ignored as a search query). Cheers, Nigel

Actually, my concern with the noise words wasn't for Microsoft Search but for Google. Since this is an internet-facing site, my main concern is with our Google and Yahoo ranking. And while they may filter out these phrases, I want to make sure that - on my end - I've done everything I could to make Google's job easier (and my page ranked higher). So does this matter in the long run? Maybe. Maybe not. But I just want to make the tools that scan my site return the cleanest results possible. That's all. Just being "overly careful".

Aah - wasn't think from an external search index point of view - fair enuf! :) Cheers, Nige

As for changing the menu.js file in the 12 hive – playing it safe is a wise move here. Of course the idea of leaving the menu.js file alone is rooted in avoiding your changes being overwritten by SP’s and updates, etc… not to mention what ‘else’ it might affect. You can rest assured if will affect other stuff. That being said, you got me thinking about ways to incorporate more of a dynamic SEO underpinning to a public facing SharePoint site. I’ve done this w/ online stores outside of SharePoint. The store would build its pages (server side) based on the specifics of the request. For example, a page displaying a candle for sale would auto-fill the html meta information (title, description, keywords, alt, etc…) based on the store items properties (product title, product description, keywords, product image description, etc…). I don’t really care about the keyword meta tag anymore, but it was a while back and you get the point. Of course I had full control of every stitch of html being rendered so it was pretty easy to make it clean and poignant. Ahhh the good old days!

As for changing the menu.js file in the 12 hive – playing it safe is a wise move here. Of course the idea of leaving the menu.js file alone is rooted in avoiding your changes being overwritten by SP’s and updates, etc… not to mention what ‘else’ it might affect. You can rest assured if will affect other stuff. That being said, you got me thinking about ways to incorporate more of a dynamic SEO underpinning to a public facing SharePoint site. I’ve done this w/ online stores outside of SharePoint. The store would build its pages (server side) based on the specifics of the request. For example, a page displaying a candle for sale would auto-fill the html meta information (title, description, keywords, alt, etc…) based on the store items properties (product title, product description, keywords, product image description, etc…). I don’t really care about the keyword meta tag anymore, but it was a while back and you get the point. Of course I had full control of every stitch of html being rendered so it was pretty easy to make it clean and poignant. Ahhh the good old days!

Aah - wasn't think from an external search index point of view - fair enuf! :) Cheers, Nige

Actually, my concern with the noise words wasn't for Microsoft Search but for Google. Since this is an internet-facing site, my main concern is with our Google and Yahoo ranking. And while they may filter out these phrases, I want to make sure that - on my end - I've done everything I could to make Google's job easier (and my page ranked higher). So does this matter in the long run? Maybe. Maybe not. But I just want to make the tools that scan my site return the cleanest results possible. That's all. Just being "overly careful".

Hi Tim, Am not using Microsoft Search with our install, so don't know a huge amount about it, but is it not possible to remove the phrases "Scroll Up" and "Scroll Down" from being counted in the relevancy ranking with some sort of Noise Word list? The search provider we are using allows this, which means simply that they are not considered in ranking, but are still valid for use in a search query (where as a stop word is ignored as a search query). Cheers, Nigel

Hi Tim, Am not using Microsoft Search with our install, so don't know a huge amount about it, but is it not possible to remove the phrases "Scroll Up" and "Scroll Down" from being counted in the relevancy ranking with some sort of Noise Word list? The search provider we are using allows this, which means simply that they are not considered in ranking, but are still valid for use in a search query (where as a stop word is ignored as a search query). Cheers, Nigel

Actually, my concern with the noise words wasn't for Microsoft Search but for Google. Since this is an internet-facing site, my main concern is with our Google and Yahoo ranking. And while they may filter out these phrases, I want to make sure that - on my end - I've done everything I could to make Google's job easier (and my page ranked higher). So does this matter in the long run? Maybe. Maybe not. But I just want to make the tools that scan my site return the cleanest results possible. That's all. Just being "overly careful".

Aah - wasn't think from an external search index point of view - fair enuf! :) Cheers, Nige

As for changing the menu.js file in the 12 hive – playing it safe is a wise move here. Of course the idea of leaving the menu.js file alone is rooted in avoiding your changes being overwritten by SP’s and updates, etc… not to mention what ‘else’ it might affect. You can rest assured if will affect other stuff. That being said, you got me thinking about ways to incorporate more of a dynamic SEO underpinning to a public facing SharePoint site. I’ve done this w/ online stores outside of SharePoint. The store would build its pages (server side) based on the specifics of the request. For example, a page displaying a candle for sale would auto-fill the html meta information (title, description, keywords, alt, etc…) based on the store items properties (product title, product description, keywords, product image description, etc…). I don’t really care about the keyword meta tag anymore, but it was a while back and you get the point. Of course I had full control of every stitch of html being rendered so it was pretty easy to make it clean and poignant. Ahhh the good old days!