Enterprise search technology is incredibly useful and powerful, but very few people understand how to apply it well. Perhaps because search looks so simple on the outside, or perhaps because of the universal familiarity with web search, enterprise search is generally poorly understood. There are many misconceptions and misunderstandings about enterprise search, and in many organizations the first comment you hear about an intranet is, “the search is useless.”

We can do search better. There is no silver bullet or secret sauce, but if you follow some basic ground rules and utilize some proven, practical techniques, you can make search something that people not only use but love.

“With great enterprise search, organizations can quickly respond to market changes, innovate and accelerate their time to market. Without good search, people drown in their own information,” writes Jeff Fried, CTO of BA Insight in his new article “The Search Journey”, “When search works well, people use it. Improving search quality will increase its utilization and make people more effective at their jobs.”