Search in the form of questions not working

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parsonsv
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Search in the form of questions not working

Post by parsonsv »

If a user searches for the following in the HTML5 help output, they get a number of results:

print a document

However, if they write it as a question, they get zero results:

how do I print a document

What is the trick to enable results when a user phrases their search in the form of a question?
Victoria Clarke
SKamprowski
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Re: Search in the form of questions not working

Post by SKamprowski »

Hello,

I assume it depends on type of your target. Please look whether you find a way to define a list of stop words.
Kind regards,
Sabine Kamprowski
DocToHelp MVP (by ComponentOne)
NorthEast
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Re: Search in the form of questions not working

Post by NorthEast »

MadCap's search will only show topics in the results that include all words (like a boolean 'and').

By default, the search doesn't include "stop words" (common words), so "do" and "I" would be ignored.
However, "how" isn't a stop word, so I presume your topic doesn't include that word.
https://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare20 ... -Words.htm

If people use natural language in MadCap's search (like they would in Google), then they'll probably get poorer results. In my projects, I use a custom search results page which includes tips on how best to use the search.
parsonsv
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Re: Search in the form of questions not working

Post by parsonsv »

Ahhhh, I see. Do you know if there's a way to add "stop words" to Flare's list of stop words?
Victoria Clarke
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Re: Search in the form of questions not working

Post by NorthEast »

Yep, it tells you how to add stop words in the help topic I linked to.
parsonsv
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Re: Search in the form of questions not working

Post by parsonsv »

Dave Lee wrote:Yep, it tells you how to add stop words in the help topic I linked to.
I'm sorry - I totally missed that when I was scanning the replies! Thank you very much. Looks like it's a language skin, so I could set up my new stop words and then add them to the master project to share with all the projects.

Time to experiment!
Victoria Clarke
parsonsv
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Re: Search in the form of questions not working

Post by parsonsv »

Oh no! I followed all the instructions, and then when I expanded the note at the very bottom of the help topic, it said:

NOTE: Stop words are not customizable in HTML5 outputs.
Victoria Clarke
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Re: Search in the form of questions not working

Post by NorthEast »

Sorry about that - I knew in the back of my mind that this functionality existed, but didn't realise it doesn't work for any 'current' help outputs. (DotNetHelp is already dead, and I'm sure WebHelp will be dead soon.)
parsonsv
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Re: Search in the form of questions not working

Post by parsonsv »

Dave Lee wrote:Sorry about that - I knew in the back of my mind that this functionality existed, but didn't realise it doesn't work for any 'current' help outputs. (DotNetHelp is already dead, and I'm sure WebHelp will be dead soon.)
No problem - I'm sure they'll catch up some day :(
Victoria Clarke
JRtechw
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Re: Search in the form of questions not working

Post by JRtechw »

Sorry if this is a little late, but I also faced the same problem in our HTML5 knowledge bases. Our users are so used to Google searches that natural language queries are very common, and often produce no results, identified in Google Analytics.

I have a custom SERP for no results, but I've found users (or our users anyway) tend to not read any of our search advice. So going off the principle of 'doing the work for user', I've written some basic-level jq into our no results SERP to:

1. Grab the natural language search query the user typed in.
2. Strip all the junk out of it so you are just left with keywords and numbers. (I just use a brute force common words list for this, nothing fancy.)
3. Construct a hyperlink that is a 'Flare keyword search equivalent' of their natural query.
4. Present this hyperlink as an alternative in a very noticeable style up the top of the no results page. All they have to do is click on the hyperlink to rerun the search based on keywords; they don't have to retype anything at all.

It's early days yet, but user response seems to have been positive, and there's been a slight reduction in the bounce rate from search result pages. Combine this with the new micro content mapping for search results and you can really start to funnel those ambiguous searches.
kodster28
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Re: Search in the form of questions not working

Post by kodster28 »

I've posted a potential solution for this issue on viewtopic.php?f=12&t=31921.

Using the files here --> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HDYiNJ ... sp=sharing

Essentially, you would:
1. Download the python.exe file.
2. Add a post-build event of [path_to_exe_file] $(Output Directory).
3. Build and publish your target.

Essentially, it looks for the list of stop words and adds a few additional ones ("How", "how", "I", "why") to the list.

You'll want to make sure to refresh the page cache to make sure its working.
parsonsv
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Re: Search in the form of questions not working

Post by parsonsv »

kodster28 wrote:I've posted a potential solution for this issue on viewtopic.php?f=12&t=31921.

Using the files here --> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HDYiNJ ... sp=sharing
Thank you for this. I'm just seeing it now. I'll check it out :)
Victoria Clarke
lorynj
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Re: Search in the form of questions not working

Post by lorynj »

Here's another idea for dealing with the issue. In one documentation set I regularly use the phrase “How to…”. I used the *Auto-index editor* to add an index term “how do I” each time it comes across the phrase “How to”. By adding it as an index term, it will be added to the topic and thus be recognised as a search target.

I also ensure that close synonyms are listed as a synonym set (e.g. new=create=make).

I log search failures and instances where readers flag search results as not being useful. Analysis of these forms of feedback lead me to manually add index terms that correspond with people's search terms in order to make the search results more useful.
Loryn Jenkins
Technical Writer and Consultant
Franchise Cloud Solutions
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