Intranet Search

The search engine sucks!” It's the single-most common complaint we hear from employees (regardless of company and industry). We can help, we fix intranet search engines.

While the search technology itself is sometimes the problem, the biggest problem is almost always content; specifically, a lack of controls and process for tagging and controlling content. Search technology has advanced impressively in recent years and yet inaccurate and irrelevant search results continually defeat intranet search queries.

Though some search engines may be sub-par, the more likely problem is an absence of people, processes and rules for managing information

We will evaluate you intranet search engine, content management process and policies, and develop the plan and solution to improve intranet search immediately, and in the long-term.

Prescient will develop a complete Intranet Search Plan with the corporate taxonomy and rules for applying meta tags and keywords. A taxonomy is a set of rules, or dictionary, for classifying or cataloguing information – whether on the intranet or the Internet.

Metatags, simply put, are the tags or data that describe the information on a content page. Think of a metatag as the tag on your shirt collar: it identifies the type of shirt and describes it with information about the materials and the manufacturer. Metatags can be used to describe content in terms of keywords, description, department, date, author, etc.

Intranet search technology has come along way in ten years. Search filters and features such as relevance ‘tuning’ (where search results and rankings can be ‘tuned’ to meet changing employee information demands and priorities) and manual keyword association (best bets) certainly help any engine’s effectiveness.

The bottom line: search is more than technology. Effective search retrieval and results require a plan. We'll develop your Intranet Search Plan that will include: 

• Governance: ownership and management structure, rules and defined processes (e.g. taxonomy and meta-tagging)
• Content management: the appropriate policies and processes baked-into your content management system
• Information architecture: the appropriate categorization and structure of content on your intranet
• Search enhancements: recommendations for enhancing results, including best bets, search help and feedback, and user experience enhancement
• Change management: outreach and education for content publishers and web users (to ensure the best content publishing practices, and the best user query use)

For help with your intranet search, and our Intranet Search Service, contact us directly or call us at 416.926.8800