Tip 34: Adding a SharePoint 2010 Search Suggestion

This tip is for SharePoint Server 2010, Search Server 2010 and Search Server 2010 Express.

SharePoint Server 2010 and Search Server 2010 Express include a new feature for search called Search Suggestions. Search suggestions are listing below the search box that suggests search terms while you are typing your search query. They have been around for a few years in sites like www.bing.com and are now integrated into SharePoint 2010. Below is a screenshot of a SharePoint Enterprise Search Center site with a suggestion.

Suggestions are automatically built based on what search results are actually clicked on. It takes 6 clicks within a year for SharePoint to add a suggestion; if an administrator needs to add a suggestion manually this can be done using the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell (PowerShell). The commands below will add the suggestion, “Suggestion” to the first Search Service Application and run the Prepare Query Suggestions timer job now. The Prepare Query Suggestions timer job is set to run daily between 1AM and 11PM local server time so this will speed up the time before the suggestion will appear in the search query suggestions list.

$ssa=Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication

New-SPEnterpriseSearchLanguageResourcePhrase -SearchApplication $ssa -Language en-US -Type QuerySuggestionAlwaysSuggest -Name “Suggestion”

$timer=Get-SPTimerJob|? {$_.Name -eq “Prepare Query Suggestions”}

$timer.RunNow()

After the above commands have been run and the timer job has been run, the suggestion and other suggestions in a Search Service Application can be listed by running the following command from the SharePoint 2010 Management Console.

Get-SPEnterpriseSearchQuerySuggestionCandidates -SearchApp $ssa

To remove the suggestion, run the following command.

Remove-SPEnterpriseSearchLanguageResourcePhrase -SearchApplication $ssa -Language En-Us -Type QuerySuggestionAlwaysSuggest -Identity “Suggestion”