How searching works in the Gainsight CC Platform

We sometimes get questions about how the search in the CC platform works exactly, and what can be done to optimise it.  As the search is weighing up many factors, it’s not always possible to determine exactly why a particular topic is or isn’t appearing in the search results.  However, in this article we will provide some context on how the search works as well as some best practices that can be applied to optimize search.
 

Searchable attributes

When searching in the Gainsight CC platform, the following attributes will be used to determine whether content is a match for the search query or not.  

• Title (content)

• First post (content)

• Whether it’s an article

• Whether it has a best answer (if it’s a question)

• Replies

• Tags

• Category

• Parent Category

Result Ranking
 

Once an item is determined to be a result, a ranking formula is then applied to configure how the results are sorted. This formula compares all of the following criteria:

• Number of words from the query that match

• Proximity of the query terms to each other

• Attribute Weighting based on the Searchable attribute list above.  The ranking will also be influenced by the following (ordered by most important first - location within the field of the search term does not matter):

  • Is it an article (true or false Boolean field)

  • Was the topic solved (true or false Boolean field)

  • Date when topic was last updated

  • Number of likes

  • Replies

  • Views

  • Typos (similar spellings)

Best Practices for Optimizing Search Results

The attributes above are not configurable or editable, as search is entirely automated.  They do, however, give us helpful pointers to how we can optimise search results.  For example:

• Ensure that topic titles are clear and accurately represent the content (make this part of the moderation process)
• Ensure that topic titles make use of keywords that customers frequently use when searching (you can use Google Analytics to track community search terms)
• Convert your most important topics into articles
• Mark best answers to important questions
• Archive outdated content that shouldn’t be showing in search results any more
• Optimise your best performing content