About help center search for end users

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<p class="p">Your help center performs a full-text search of your knowledge base articles, community
posts, and if federated search is enabled and configured, <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4593607942298" target="_blank">external content</a> such as blogs or websites.</p>
<p class="p">When a user enters a search query in the help center, the search algorithms get to work,
looking for indicators of the most relevant results and ranking them. The relevant snippet
from the content of your knowledge base article, community post, or external content is
created and the search results and relevant search filters are displayed on the search results
page.</p>
<p class="p"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/8888178335898" target="_blank">Generative search</a> is available with all Zendesk Suite and Knowledge
plans, and provides AI-generated answers to users' search queries in your help center based on
your content. When generative search is activated, users can view generated answers without
clicking through search results or scanning related articles. However, users can still easily
click into the articles for more information.</p>
<p class="p">Help center search is just one way to search for content in your help center. For information
about other search methods, see<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408834595738-Understanding-help-center-search-methods-instant-search-native-search-article-suggestions-KC-app" target="_blank"> Understanding help center search methods</a>.</p>
<div class="note" id="topic_ncb_d14_lz__note_mbf_ccf_whc">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> If your help center is <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408827609882" target="_blank">configured to support multiple languages</a>, your <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408834328090" target="_blank">help center locale</a> must match the article translation. For example,
if your help center locale is set to en-gb (English - United Kingdom), but the article
translation itself is written in Japanese, search will not work as intended and described in
this article. </div>
<div class="p">This article contains the following sections:<ul class="ul" id="topic_ncb_d14_lz__ul_okq_rbr_vjb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_zmf_y4s_3fc">Which content is included and excluded in search results</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_sxm_z4s_3fc">Understanding the relevance score in search results</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_asy_1ps_3fc">Understanding boosts in search results</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_zjy_bps_3fc">Other relevance features</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_syt_cps_3fc">Improving the search experience for end users</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_zmf_y4s_3fc">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Which content is included and excluded in search results</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">When you search the help center, you're searching all knowledge base articles (first 10,000
characters of each article) in your native help center. Your search can also include the
following:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_zmf_y4s_3fc__ul_fdh_2cf_whc">
<li class="li">Articles and community posts from other help centers in your account, if multiple help
centers are enabled and search has been configured to include results from those help
centers. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821552666-Enabling-search-across-multiple-help-centers" target="_blank">Enabling search across multiple help centers</a>.</li>
<li class="li">Content from external sources, if federated search is enabled and search has been
configured to include results from external content. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408830243482" target="_blank">About help center federated search</a>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested2" id="topic_azh_jys_3fc">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title3">Articles and community posts</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">When an article, post, or external content is returned, the search engine attempts to
find a snippet from the document body that matches the search. If there is no match in the
document body or comments, an extract from the start of the document body is returned. If
there is a match, the search engine divides the article or post into sentences and ranks
each sentence based on the number of matches. The score is then normalized by the fragment
length to ensure that fragments are not too small. </p>
<p class="p">The default snippet size for a search result is 120 characters, although results can vary
slightly because the snippet engine will always try to return a fragment that includes a
complete sentence.</p>
<p class="p">These items might also be included in the search:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_azh_jys_3fc__ul_cgj_t2t_3fc">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Restricted content - </strong>Only users with permission to access restricted content
will see in search results. </li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">New content - </strong>When you add or update content it usually takes only a few
minutes before the content is indexed and can be searched.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Comments </strong>- Article and post comments are included in the help center search
results. Comments will show up in the search results as long as the search result
snippet is matched in the comment. If there are multiple comment matches within one
community post, the algorithm will pick the most relevant comment snippet.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Hyperlinks -</strong> URLs within the document body and linked text are included in help
center search results.</li>
</ul>
<p class="p">These items are not included in the search:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_azh_jys_3fc__ul_dgj_t2t_3fc">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Attachments - </strong>Content within article attachments isn't included in help center
search.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">My Activities -</strong> Search in My Activities is limited to tickets and,
specifically, tickets you have access to. It does not include articles.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested2" id="topic_fdx_y2t_3fc">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title4">External Content</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">If external content is available, the title of the external content is displayed along
with a link to open the content in a new browser tab and a snippet from the document body
that matches the search. If there is no match in the document body, an extract from the
start of the document body is returned.</p>
<p class="p">External content source types and filters are defined during search crawler setup or
during federated search API configuration. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408830243482" target="_blank">About help center federated search</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="topic_sxm_z4s_3fc">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">Understanding the relevance score in search results</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">The ranked search results are based on <a class="xref" href="https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/master/relevance-intro.html" target="_blank">relevance scores</a> and are displayed to users in
descending order of their scores.</p>
<p class="p">Relevance scores are indicated by a weighted average per field score. A field is a part of
a record, representing an item of data. The following are some examples of relevance
scoring:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_sxm_z4s_3fc__ul_yqp_ghf_whc">
<li class="li">Matches in an article or post title field score higher than matches in other
fields.</li>
<li class="li">Matches in article labels score higher than matches in the body field.</li>
</ul>
<p class="p">The following table lists the current field weights:</p>
<div class="p">
<div class="tablenoborder">
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="table" frame="border" id="topic_sxm_z4s_3fc__table_azd_jhf_whc" rules="all" summary="">
<colgroup>
<col style="width:25%">
<col style="width:25%">
<col style="width:25%">
<col style="width:25%">
</colgroup>
<thead class="thead" style="text-align:left;">
<tr class="row">
<th class="entry cellrowborder" id="d87e245" style="vertical-align:top;">Field</th>
<th class="entry cellrowborder" id="d87e248" style="vertical-align:top;">Weight for KB articles</th>
<th class="entry cellrowborder" id="d87e251" style="vertical-align:top;">Weight for community posts</th>
<th class="entry cellrowborder" id="d87e254" style="vertical-align:top;">Weight for external content</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody class="tbody">
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e245" style="vertical-align:top;">Title</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e248" style="vertical-align:top;">3</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e251" style="vertical-align:top;">3</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e254" style="vertical-align:top;">3</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e245" style="vertical-align:top;">Details (Body of a community post)</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e248" style="vertical-align:top;">N/A</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e251" style="vertical-align:top;">1</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e254" style="vertical-align:top;">N/A</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e245" style="vertical-align:top;">Body</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e248" style="vertical-align:top;">1</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e251" style="vertical-align:top;">N/A</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e254" style="vertical-align:top;">1</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e245" style="vertical-align:top;">Labels</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e248" style="vertical-align:top;">2.8</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e251" style="vertical-align:top;">N/A</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e254" style="vertical-align:top;">N/A</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e245" style="vertical-align:top;">Comment</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e248" style="vertical-align:top;">1</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e251" style="vertical-align:top;">1</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e254" style="vertical-align:top;">N/A</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e245" style="vertical-align:top;">Section title</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e248" style="vertical-align:top;">1.5</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e251" style="vertical-align:top;">N/A</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d87e254" style="vertical-align:top;">N/A</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>
<p class="p">Relevance scores are also impacted by a text analysis process that considers the following
factors:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_sxm_z4s_3fc__ul_hwt_yhf_whc">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Exact match </strong>- Results that exactly match a word in the search string. This scores
higher than a stemmed match.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Stemmed match </strong>- Results where a word matches after <a class="xref" href="https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/master/stemming.html" target="_blank">stemming</a>. For example, the plural form of a word
generally matches the singular form.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Term frequency </strong>- Number of matches returned in a single field. Higher term
frequency increases the score.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Field length </strong>- Matches in shorter fields score higher than results in longer
fields. For example, if you have a single word search that matches a one-word title, that
will score higher than a hit in a long article title with many words.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Proximity boost </strong>- The score is boosted when all the search terms are close
together in the same field. For example if all the search terms are included in an
article title, this puts them in close proximity and gives the result higher
relevance.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Phrase boost </strong>- In multiple term queries, exact word order is preferred. For
example, when searching for “car park”, results containing “car park” are ranked higher
than results containing “park car.”</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Query length </strong>- For one- and two-word queries, the algorithm returns only
documents that match all the search words. For longer queries, 40% of the query terms must
be present in a document for it to become a search result.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Overall quantity and quality </strong>of relevant results.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Semantic search </strong>- Knowledge uses semantic search as a way to improve the ranking
and generate the most accurate search results possible based on the intent and context of
user search queries. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5633225532826" target="_blank">About semantic search and how it works</a>.</li>
</ul>
<div class="note" id="topic_sxm_z4s_3fc__note_vpj_b3f_whc">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> Suggested articles are what users see when they type the subject
of a request in the Submit a request form in their help center. Suggested posts are what
users see when they create the title of a community post. The search relevance used for
suggested articles and posts is the same as the rest of the help center.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title6" class="topic nested1" id="topic_asy_1ps_3fc">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title6">Understanding boosts in search results</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">In addition to text analysis, we give extra weight to certain features of articles and
posts. These include:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_asy_1ps_3fc__ul_fvt_f3f_whc">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Article votes </strong>- End users can rate articles as “helpful” or “unhelpful” so that
over time an article may develop a score such as “10 of 50 users found this article
helpful.” Articles with a higher percentage of positive votes receive a boost so that they
show up a higher in results than they otherwise would. The more overall votes an article
has weighs in too; for example, an article with a rating of 10 out of 50 gets more weight
than one with 10 out of 100.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Community post votes</strong> (requires Knowledge Professional or Enterprise) - End users
can rate community posts as “helpful” or “unhelpful,” just as they can for articles. The
percentage of positive votes functions as a boost and makes a certain post rank higher
than it otherwise would.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Labels</strong> (requires Knowledge Professional or Enterprise) - Labels are elements you
can use to influence the relevance score of your articles in search results. Consider
using labels carefully to balance your Knowledge base search results.</li>
</ul>
<p class="p"></p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title7" class="topic nested1" id="topic_zjy_bps_3fc">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title7">Other relevance features</h2>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title8" class="topic nested2" id="topic_uvl_k4f_whc">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title8">Fuzzy search</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Fuzzy search is a process where an article or post is deemed to be relevant to a search
query, even when there is not an exact match to the search terms in any of its fields.
Fuzzy search is used to protect users from spelling mistakes.</p>
<p class="p">Unlike stemming (which removes suffixes and prefixes to get to the root of a search term)
fuzzy search uses <a class="xref" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edit_distance" target="_blank">edit distance</a> to identify search results that contain terms
close to the query terms. For example, if you search for “user segmemt” the search engine
will also return results containing “user segment”.</p>
<p class="p">The current rule for finding approximate matches is:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_uvl_k4f_whc__ul_ext_l4f_whc">
<li class="li">Terms containing a maximum of two characters must match exactly</li>
<li class="li">Terms containing three to five characters are allowed one typo</li>
<li class="li">Terms longer than five characters are allowed two typos</li>
</ul>
<p class="p">Fuzzy search is not available in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese help center languages.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title9" class="topic nested2" id="topic_dc5_m4f_whc">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title9">Optimized language support</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">For content written in certain languages, we apply specific optimizations.</p>
<p class="p">Stemming is language specific. In English, the search engine knows that if you search for
the term “films” you also want results that contain the singular form “film.” Similar
rules apply to all languages.</p>
<p class="p">Stop words are another language-specific factor. Stop words are the most common words in
a language that are usually excluded from the search query to avoid returning too many
results. For example, in English, “the” is a stop word.</p>
<p class="p">Help center search is aware of the stemming rules and the stop words for a number of
languages that together make up up to 99% of all searches performed by end users.</p>
<p class="p">Searches are optimized in the following languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Burmese, Chinese,
Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese,
Khmer, Korean, Norwegian, Persian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and
Thai. </p>
<p class="p">All other languages benefit from basic search support.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title10" class="topic nested1" id="topic_syt_cps_3fc">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title10">Improving the search experience for end users</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">There are a number of ways that you can improve a user's search experience. Consider
changing the color of search results highlighting in your custom theme, or use CSS to <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408842914714-Help-Center-CSS-cookbook#topic_ocg_xdp_h5" target="_blank">change the appearance of your search results keyword
highlighting</a>. </p>
<div class="p">You can also use the search analytics dashboard to review search terms from the last 30
days. For each search term, you can see the number of searches for that term, number and
type of search results returned (if any), click-through, and the next action taken.<div class="note" id="topic_syt_cps_3fc__note_otl_s4f_whc">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> This requires Knowledge Professional or Enterprise.</div>
</div>
<p class="p">Search analytics gives you insight into what your customers are looking for and where they
are failing to find answers. To make end users more successful, you can analyze search data,
then take actions to improve search results and your knowledge base content. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408818465562" target="_blank">Analyzing help center search results</a>.</p>
<p class="p" dir="ltr"><strong class="ph b">To access the Zendesk Knowledge dashboard</strong></p>
<ol class="ol" id="topic_syt_cps_3fc__ol_zbn_r4f_whc">
<li class="li" dir="ltr">In the Zendesk product tray, click <strong class="ph b">Analytics</strong>.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">From the list of dashboards, select the <strong class="ph b">Zendesk Knowledge</strong>
dashboard.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Click the <strong class="ph b">Search</strong> tab.</li>
</ol>
<div class="section" id="topic_syt_cps_3fc__section_bcn_r4f_whc">
<h3 class="title sectiontitle">Providing tips for your end users to find content more easily</h3>
<div class="p">There are a number of operands you can recommend to help end users locate content in
search.<div class="note" id="topic_syt_cps_3fc__note_bgr_1pf_whc">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> When you search, any comments associated with an
article and post are also searched. Therefore, the search term might not be in an
article or post itself, but in a linked comment. Exact matches with doubles quotes (")
are not supported on comments.</div>
</div>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_syt_cps_3fc__ul_ccn_r4f_whc">
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Find multiple words: </strong>Use double quotes (") around each word to find content
that contains all those words.</p>
<p class="p">For example, <code class="ph codeph">"article" "title" "section" "author"</code> retrieves content
that contains all four words, in any order. Make sure you put spaces between the
search words, otherwise the search handles the text as one string. </p>
<p class="p">You'll get results if there is a <a class="xref" href="https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/master/stemming.html" target="_blank">stemmed</a> version of a word (e.g.
<em class="ph i">articles</em>). You won't get results where content contains only the words
<em class="ph i">title </em>and <em class="ph i">section</em>, for example. </p>
<p class="p">If you use single quotes (') around a word, the single quotes are ignored. If you
search for <code class="ph codeph">'article' 'title' 'section' 'author'</code>, you'll see results
for all content that contains any of the words <em class="ph i">title</em> or <em class="ph i">article</em> or
<em class="ph i">section </em>or <em class="ph i">author</em> (exactly as if you had searched without the single
quotes).</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Find a phrase: </strong>Use double quotes (") around a phrase to find content that
contains all the words in that phrase.</p>
<p class="p">For example, <code class="ph codeph">"article title"</code> retrieves all content that contains the
words <em class="ph i">article</em> and <em class="ph i">title</em>, in that order. You'll also get results if there
is a <a class="xref" href="https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/master/stemming.html" target="_blank">stemmed</a> version of the word (e.g.
<em class="ph i">articles</em>). You won't get results where content contains only the word
<em class="ph i">title</em>, for example.</p>
<p class="p">If you use single quotes (') around a phrase, the single quotes are ignored. </p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Exclude results containing certain words</strong>: Use the minus operator (-) in front
of the search term to find content that does not include that word or phrase.</p>
<p class="p">For example, <em class="ph i">reporting bugs -support</em> returns content containing the words
<em class="ph i">reporting</em> and <em class="ph i">bugs</em>, but excludes those that contain the word
<em class="ph i">support</em> from the result set.</p>
<div class="note" id="topic_syt_cps_3fc__note_u5g_dpf_whc">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> Do not repeat the same word after a minus operator (-). For
example, the search <code class="ph codeph">"cannot send -cannot set"</code> repeats the word
“cannot” and therefore won’t return any results. Instead, search for <code class="ph codeph">"cannot
send -set"</code> so that the search returns results excluding the articles that
contain the phrase “cannot set”.</div>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Combine operands for advanced search</strong>: you can combine the operands above to
find a very specific set of results.</p>
<p class="p">For example, <em class="ph i">"reporting bugs" -support</em> returns hits for content that contains
both the words <em class="ph i">reporting</em> and <em class="ph i">bugs</em>, but does not contain the word
<em class="ph i">support.</em></p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>