SharePoint 2013 Search tips and tricks

Search is a very big part of almost every SharePoint site but searching through the content is not the goal, finding the correct content is. In this post I will give 8 tips to get better search results!

1 Refinement panel

Use the refinement panel on the search results page to narrow down the results. When SharePoint displays the search results you can filter the results by using the refinement panel. Common refinement options are result type, author and modified date.

2 Use Boolean operators

Boolean operators are used to narrow or expand the search results. Capitalization usually does not matter in search, except for operators. For Boolean operators to work correctly they need to be written in capitals.

AND	Use AND to narrow your search results. The returned search results include all of the free text expressions
NOT	Use NOT to narrow your search results. The returned search results don’t include the specified free text expressions or property restrictions.
OR	Use OR to expand your search to include more terms. The returned search results include one or more of the specified free text expressions or property restrictions.

Example: “Project plan” OR “Business Case”

3 Use wildcards

Use a wildcard * if you want to be sure to get variations of the term you are looking for or if you are not sure about the spelling.
Example: Project* to search for all item starting with the word project.

4 Use double quotes

Use double quotes ”" to find exact phrases if you are sure about the phrases.
Example: “Progress report”

5 Use Search shortcuts

SharePoint search has a few handy shortcuts that make searching for specific types of content faster and easier. When using a shortcut SharePoint combines property filters to narrow down the search results. When searching for a document called Projectplan search for projectplan doc instead of projectplan. In the background SharePoint will change the search shortcut from doc into filetype:doc OR filetype:docx, filtering the results and displaying only Word documents.

Search shortcuts	Result
Deck or decks	Only PowerPoint presentations will be shown
Slide or slides	Only PowerPoint presentations will be shown
Doc	Only Word documents will be shown
Video	Only video files will be shown
Site	Only SharePoint sites will be shown
Blog or blogs	Blog sites will be shown
Post	Only shows the news feed activities
Conversation	Only conversations (discussions) will be shown

6 Use Specifying properties

The most easy way to explain what properties are is to use the less technical term SharePoint uses which is; metadata. Metadata is the data captured to describe the content. By default SharePoint captures a lot of metadata such as document title, document type, last modified date. The main purpose of using metadata is to make sure all the content stored in SharePoint can be found easily.

A basic property restriction consists of the following three parts: a property name a operator and a value. 

<Property Name><Property Operator><Property Value>

Example: Author:John or Title:Projectplan

7 Use Property restrictions (operators)

When using properties to narrow down the search results it is possible to make the search query even more specific with the use of different property restrictions. The most used and best known is the : operator. When using the : operator the returned results will all be equal to the specified value . There are a lot more operators available a few examples are:

Operator	Description	Example
:	Returns results where the value is equal to the property value (short description)	Author:John
=	Returns results where the value is equal to the property value	Title=Projectplan
<	Returns results where the value is less then the property value	Created>9/20/2012
>	Returns results where the value is greater then the property value	Modified<10/10/2012

Search in SharePoint 2013 supports several new property operators. See the full list of the property operators on Keyword Query Language (KQL) syntax referene table 2.

8 Try again

If you did not find the correct document, change the search query a bit. Add or remove terms, operators and properties. Not all documents will be found with the first attempt.

SharePoint 2013 new search features

Author refinement 

The refinement panel shows refinement options relative to the search results. For example it shows the authors. With SharePoint 2013 it possible to click on Show More and enter the name of the author you are looking for.

Modified date refinement 

Another example of a refinement options is the modified date. With SharePoint 2013 it possible to select a period on the timeline. A very easy and powerful way to refine the search results.

Document search results

When hovering over a document in the search result the fancy new preview panel is loaded. Not only can you open the document itself, with the view library button you can open the library where the document is stored! In the preview panel it is possible to fully scroll through the document, a very fast way to ensure you found the correct document.

Per user search preferences

User can configure search preferences to make the search experience more personal.

1. Users can activate or deactivate search suggestions in the search box and suggestions and favorites based on personal query history.
2. Users can clear there Clear personal query history, resetting Personal Query Suggestions and Results You Have Clicked.
3. Users can select if a document will open in the client application or in the browser.
4. Users can select a preferred search language.
5. Users can view and edit there existing search alerts.

Courtesy -Ben Prins

Changing Host Header in SharePoint 2010

We had a requirement of changing the host header in SharePoint Server 2010, 
For most of the time I just follow changing the IIS edit binding option and I change the new host header. Like the steps mentioned below,

1. Go to IIS (Start > Run > InetMgr), Select your target web application, Click on "Bindings" on right pane
2. Click on "Edit" and then update the "Host Name" with new URL for the web application.
   

After goggling for best way of changing the host header, I found a nice and neat article from "Russ Maxwell"  - How to properly change the Host Header URL of a web application in SharePoint 2010.

First, let’s describe what it means to create a host header web application.   When you create a web application you have the ability to add a host header url.

In the above screenshot, I created a web application with a host header URL of RussMaxOriginalHost.   After creating the web application and site collection, I browse to the IIS Site and look at the bindings and the Host Header is added automatically which is expected.

Also, If I check Alternate Access Mappings in Central Admin I see the default zone is populated with my host header URL for the given web application

And finally, browsing to the site after creating the site collection renders the site with the specified host header.

What happens when I need to change this host header URL value?   My original thought was to simply go edit the bindings of IIS and change the alternate access mapping.   This actually works but isn’t recommended because eventually the bindings in IIS will be overwritten by the original host header URL.  

For Example:

Going to Central Administrator, Services on Server, and stopping and starting the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application service for the specified server will overwrite any manually updated host header entry in IIS/Site bindings with the original host header URL. 

or

Adding a new SharePoint Server to an existing farm will get the site with the original host header URL after Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application service is started which happens automatically via PSConfig.

Explanation

When you create a web application and specify a host header URL, you stamp the host header URL on the spwebapplication object which is stored in the objects table in the configuration database.   When you try to change the host header URL by updating the Alternate Access Mapping and manually update the bindings in IIS, the SPWebApplication object is never updated so it continues to maintain knowledge of the original host header URL and not the new one.   When you start the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application service in Central Admin, the information from the associated SPWebApplication object in the configuration database is used when instantiating IIS Sites.  This is why the original host header URL shows up.

Options

The best automated way to update the Host Header URL on a web application is similar to the approach in SharePoint 2007 which is to un-extend and re-extend the Web Application.   That is, disassociate any connection with the existing IIS site and re-establishing that association.   Steps are the following assuming I’m changing my host header URL from russmaxoriginalhost to russmaxnewhost.     

1.  Go to Central Administrator, Application Management, Select the Web Application you wish to change and hit the arrow under Delete and choose  Remove SharePoint from IIS Site.

           

2. Next, select the associated site you which to update the host header URL against.    For Delete IIS web sites, select No and hit OK.

    

Note:  If you have more than two IIS sites available, that means your web application is extended so choose the appropriate Zone/IIS Site that you would like to update.           

3. Go to Central Administrator, Application Management, Select the same Web Application and choose Extend button on the ribbon.

4. Choose Use an exisitng IIS Site and choose the original site from Step 2 above.   Specify the New Host Header URL and any other settings that should match.  In my case, I updated the Host Header to RussMaxNewHost and hit OK here.

After updating DNS, the site comes up with no problems.

Question:   What if the web application is already extended to another zone let’s say extranet zone and you want to change host header URL for the default zone?

Answer:  This will still work fine since your only making changes to the IIS site associated with the default zone, the site hosting the extranet zone will remain untouched and should continue to work fine after the above changes.

Question:   How can I validate the associated SPWebApplication object in the configuration database contains the new host header URL?

Answer:   You can run the following Power Shell to validate.   Here is a sample:

$wa = get-spwebapplication “http://randomURL”
$iissettings = $wa.GetIisSettingsWithFallback("Default")
$iissettings.serverbindings

This will output the host header URL for the default zone for the web application of your desired URL.

Thanks to  JASON WARREN

SharePoint SQL Server Support Matrix

	2013	2010	2007	2003	2001
SQL Server 2012	All editions 64-bit	All editions Requires SharePoint SP1 64-bit
SQL Server 2008 R2	SQL Server SP1 All editions 64-bit	All editions 64-bit	All editions Requires SharePoint SP2 32-bit, 64-bit
SQL Server 2008		SQL Server SP1 + CU2 or CU5 CU3 or CU4 not recommended All editions 64-bit	All editions Requires SharePoint SP1 32-bit, 64-bit
SQL Server 2005		SQL Server SP3 All editions 64-bit	SQL Server SP1 All editions 32-bit, 64-bit	SQL Server SP4 Standard 32-bit, 64-bit Enterprise 32-bit, 64-bit Workgroup 32-bit, 64-bit
SQL Server 2000			SQL Server SP4 All editions 32-bit, 64-bit	Standard 32-bit, 64-bit Enterprise 32-bit, 64-bit Workgroup 32-bit, 64-bit MSDE 32-bit, 64-bit	All editions
SQL Server 7.0					All editions

Notes

1. An empty cell mean this SQL Server/SharePoint combination is not supported.
2. This table reflects all SharePoint editions, i.e. WSS/Foundation and Server Standard/Enterprise/Internet Sites. In other words within a SharePoint version, the SQL Server requirements are the same.
3. I’ve indicated if a minimum SQL Server or SharePoint Service Pack is required otherwise assume RTM and later.
4. The documentation isn’t always complete. When specific editions are not provided, I’ve assumed all mainstream editions (e.g. Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, Web, Workgroup, Express) are supported and used the phrase All editions.
5. Why have I listed unsupported versions of SharePoint? One day you’ll encounter one of these ancient farms in need of some help and the answer will be obvious.