Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

Chapter 22: Managing External Content in Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 623
To configure searches in this way, you’ll need to use the Use Search Scope
from Another Portal Site link in the Site Settings of your portal site. Click the
Associate This Portal To Another Portal option button, and then enter the URL
for the associated portal site.
Windows SharePoint Services Search and MSSearch
The search engine that runs in a Windows SharePoint Services site is the SQL Server
full-text search engine. The search engine that runs the SharePoint Portal Server
search functionality is MSSearch.exe. These are two different, distinct engines that
produce two different indexes. These indexes cannot be merged or shared, nor is
there any support for attempting to merge these two engines to gain a common
index for the portal site and all sites associated with the portal site.
The Topic Assistant
The Topic Assistant provides a way for you to automatically have items in the portal
site categorized into areas based on the existing items in those areas. In other words,
when properly trained, the Topic Assistant could take a document about flat-panel
monitors stored in an area dedicated to content about monitors and include it in an
area dedicated to LCD technology. This reduces the time and effort it takes to manage
areas, allowing items on the portal site to appear in search results and the portal
site map according to the areas to which they belong.
As you add items to lists and document libraries in a particular area, the Topic Assistant
can learn (by looking at the index) from your manually added content in that area
and other areas and then suggest items to list under alternate areas that it deems are
appropriate for that content to appear in. The content manager of that area then
can approve or reject these suggestions. As areas are added to the portal site and as items
are added to areas, the Topic Assistant continues to learn and suggest items for each area.
The effectiveness of the Topic Assistant is highly dependent on the size of the
training set, the appropriateness of the content in each area, and the level of precision
set when configuring the feature. There must be a minimum of two areas configured
to be included by the Topic Assistant with at least ten documents each to
begin the training process. Every time the content index is crawled, the Topic Assistant
makes its suggestions. The content index is crawled by selecting the Train Now link on
the Topic Assistant page. A best practice is to well exceed the minimum requirements
to train the Topic Assistant so that more accurate portal listings are created.
Manage Crawls of Site Directory
Whenever you create a new site collection in the Site Directory, that site collection’s
URL is placed in the Manage Crawls Of Site Directory list. By default, the listing is
approved and crawling of that URL is enabled.
There might be times when you’ll want to temporarily stop indexing a site collection—perhaps
when the site’s administrator contacts you to ask for a temporary