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For the ones who have not migrated their environment on SharePoint 2013, or the novices, here is an article in which we will discover the new search capabilities in SharePoint Server 2013.
We will have an overview of:

  • Search User interface
  • Crawling
  • Structure
  • Index & Search Schema
  • Health reports
  • Search architecture

 

What is the SP Search tool? what

SharePoint contains a search technology, which combines advanced search and analytics features. This feature is highly customizable. The content of documents (including PDFs) are searched.

FUNCTIONAL DRAW

search

 

Search user interface

Users can quickly identify useful results in ways such as the following:

  • Users can just move the pointer above the result for preview.
  • Results can be distinguished based on their type. The application icon is placed in front of the title of the search result. Lync availability and the people picture is shown on the results.
  • Certain types of related results are displayed in groups called result blocks. A result block contains a small subset of results that are related in a particular way. For example, results that are Excel documents appear in a result block searching for terms like the word “budget”.

The search tool helps users to return to a previous search because the system is keeping search history.

Site collection administrators and site owners can specify display templates that determine how result types appear.

 

 

Crawling improvements

In SharePoint Server 2013, you can configure crawl schedules for SharePoint content sources so that crawls are performed continuously. Setting this option eliminates the need to schedule incremental crawls and automatically starts crawls as necessary to keep the search index fresh. Administrators should still configure full crawls as necessary.

For more information, see on TechNet site: Manage continuous crawls in SharePoint Server 2013.

Index and Search schema

By defining crawled properties, managed properties, and the mappings between them, the search schema determines how the properties of crawled content are saved to the search index.
The search index stores the contents of the managed properties. The attributes of the managed properties determine the search index structure.

SharePoint Server 2013 introduces new attributes that you can apply to manage properties, such as sortable and refinable. The sortable attribute reduces the time that is required to return large search result sets by sorting results before they are returned. The refinable attribute enables you to create a refiner based on a particular managed property.

In SharePoint Server 2013, you can have multiple search schemas. The main search schema is defined at the Search service application level. Site collection administrators can create customized search schemas for different site collections.

For more information, see on TechNet site: Manage the search schema in SharePoint Server 2013.

Health reports

SharePoint Server 2013 provides many query health reports and crawl health reports. In SharePoint Server 2010 and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, similar reports were called Search Administration Reports. For more information, see View search diagnostics in SharePoint Server 2013.

Search architecture

SharePoint Server 2013 introduces a new search architecture that includes significant changes and additions to the search components and databases. For examples and more information, see the Search technical diagrams in Technical diagrams for SharePoint 2013.

All the SharePoint 2013 Improvements are kept in SharePoint 2016, actually the first info done my Microsoft about the search in SharePoint 2016 is regarding the Delve:

Search with Delve

SharePoint 2016 will be having Search with Delve app.

What is Delve?what

Delve is a new way of searching & presenting contents based on user’s interest. Delve’s roots goes to Office 365.

Delve can present information from Exchange, OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online and Yammer based on user’s interactions.
For more information, please have a look on this reference: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/What-is-Office-Delve–1315665a-c6af-4409-a28d-49f8916878ca?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

Conclusion

Search could easily become a nightmare sometimes, please use the Best Practices related to any search whether be people, objects, information, needles in a haystack … with the right information and the right settings we always seem to find back what we are looking for.

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Best practices for organizing content for search in SharePoint Server 2013: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj683124.aspx

Plan search in SharePoint Server 2013: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263400.aspx