What is the most efficient way to create spaces, and pages in space for better search

[simon_tsegay]

So, my company has over 20 spaces and each spaces has a page and sub pages. Now, when we are searching for a specific page with a keyword (found in all spaces) we get many search results, and we have to scan all and sometimes click and go to the wrong page. 

So, my questions is, how can we make search more efficient from the way how we create the pages? Can we play around with the URL, some tags, hidden keywords to allow users add these keys in the search and go directly to the page?

[Craig Castle-Mead]

hey @simon_tsegay 

Based on your question my guess is that the Content in your confluences spaces cover a similar topic, so the keywords used have a lot of consistencies. 

https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/how-do-i-understand-the-ranking-of-confluence-s-search-results-785614686.html covers some of the logic about the search weighting - as well as mentions the explain action that gives you insight in to how the rankings are calculated.

i would suggest sitting with some of your users and seeing what words they’re searching for, then reviewing all links/known pages that you would expect to be showing up higher up the search rankings and then looking at the explain output to see why a page is lower than you expect, then tweak the pages (ensure keywords are in the page title not just the body should increase its ranking for example).

Having more distinct search terms will always help reduce the noise in any search results, but that depends on the topic and your users. If you have business/technical lingo in your content but your end users are end consumers or less technically inclined, they terms they search for may be VERY different to the content your team is entering

in summary: search is hard

Some user testing is where id start though so you understand their behavior. 

CCM