Pushing a topic to the top of the search rankings

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chris kerr
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Mar 27, 2019 3:16 am

Pushing a topic to the top of the search rankings

Post by chris kerr »

Is there a reliable way to push a specific topic to the top of Flare's search rankings?

Say we have 10 topics that have the search term x repeated a varying number of times across them, in paragraphs, h1s and h2s.

We also have another topic that provides a conceptual definition of x, but x only appears in this topic once or twice. As a user, I'd expect to see the conceptual definition at the top.

I haven't found a way to push the conceptual topic to the top using Flare's information on search rankings: https://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare20 ... esults.htm

The only method I've found that works is to stuff the Abstract/Description with the keyword, but this looks weird in the search results because the Abstract text is shown.

Adding the keyword to the Topic Title (so it appears in the <title></title> tag) doesn't work, because all the other topics have the keyword in their h1, which Flare then puts in the <title> anyway. I have also tried using index keywords, but this doesn't work reliably.
Psider
Propellus Maximus
Posts: 811
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:32 am

Re: Pushing a topic to the top of the search rankings

Post by Psider »

I know glossary entries are promoted in the search.

If I understand how your content is set up, what I would try is convert each definition in the conceptual topic to a snippet, then create glossary topics for each term and insert the snippet in the glossary topic. (see step 8 for the Topic step):
https://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare20 ... itions.htm

There's also micro content which can be promoted, but I haven't played with it so not sure how it works.
https://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare20 ... ontent.htm
JRtechw
Propeller Head
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2017 8:08 pm

Re: Pushing a topic to the top of the search rankings

Post by JRtechw »

Are you on Flare 2019? I've found the new 'featured search' micro content feature a godsend when you're trying to funnel specific search results. Just add your search term and create a snippet that will appear at the top of search results when a user enters that term.

You could also load the article with keywords using a h1/2 'keywords' CSS class with 'diplay: none;' set. It's an old-fashioned fudge, but I've used it successfully to tweak a few searches, especially when you want to capture split word synonyms (multi location = multilocation, that sort of thing).
Feebeegeebee
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 213
Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2012 8:38 am
Location: UK

Re: Pushing a topic to the top of the search rankings

Post by Feebeegeebee »

One thing that also affects the ranking of a topic in the search results is the number of links there are to that topic.

I discovered this recently, when trying to work out why a topic was not appearing at the top of the search results, despite having the search term in the title and multiple keywords, etc.
So, if you can ensure there are lots of links to it or references in "related topics" controls, that will also push it up the rankings.

Regards,
Feebeegeebee
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