Enterprise Search in general denotes an enterprise-wide search. It forms part of the so-called information retrieval. By means of the enterprise search a content-oriented search via computer is made possible. This search is carried out with the help of a company-internal search engine, and it filters contents by means of a crawler. However, these search requests are not carried out directly on the actual documents respectively data but via a search index, which results in a faster search flow.
Search Index
As a rule, such a search index consists of internal data which stem from different databases. In case a request shows one or more hits a text excerpt will be provided. This type of preview is extremely helpful as it allows for a quick finding of the relevant hits. In addition, the index guarantees the topicality of the data. Summing up, it can be said that an enterprise search system can be regarded to be of great help to the staffers of a company who are in search of work-relevant information.
Such a search engine consists of two components:
First the crawling component that is responsible for the provision and structure of the data. Then the query engine for the actual search run and the ranking engine that assigns the files to a specific level of relevance.
On the surface, you can compare an enterprise search system to a browser; the lists of results, too, are fairly similar to those found in the Internet search engines. Although an Internet search does not basically differ from an enterprise search with regard to technology or the algorithms, there are, however, some differences between the two. For one thing, safety plays a greater role in context with the enterprise search system. This cannot only be put down to the fact that this whole system adheres to very strict data protection rules but also because authorisation is fixed by the enterprise itself. What is more, the contents have been especially optimised for these search engines and, as a consequence, are guaranteed not to contain any spam.
The linking structure of this system, too, is built in a more sophisticated way. The search engine does not orientate itself along the line of how many links a document features but focuses on the indexes. In this manner, a much better performance can be provided and a reduction in computing power can be achieved, too.
Search in the Enterprise
An enterprise search system can prove to be a great asset for an enterprise. It makes work easier for the employees, and it considerably promotes data safety. One should however, bear in mind that that such a system is highly costly and requires adequate maintenance. For this reason these systems are an option for bigger companies only, who deal with a lot of data.
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