Chapter 9. Building a Site Directory with SharePoint Search

A common challenge for many SharePoint users is finding sites with content that is relevant to them. It is pretty common to find environments with hundreds if not thousands of sites. In past versions of the product, there was a Site Directory feature that was available, but it was essentially just a SharePoint list which required manual entry and significant maintenance, which ultimately made it a pretty unreliable and ineffective solution.

This chapter will provide some alternative solutions for addressing these challenges, starting with an overview of some key concepts on how to leverage SharePoint Search to provide an optimized experience, making it easier for users to search and discover relevant sites. In addition to the conceptual overview, the following configurations and custom solutions will be covered:

• Sites Search Scope

• Site Directory page

• Relevant sites Web Part

Site Directory options

There are two main approaches to providing...