Search Capabilities for ASP.NET Web Content

Jonathan HawkinsArchitectASP.NETMicrosoft Corporation

Nathan BuggiaSenior Product PlannerLive SearchMicrosoft Corporation

Agenda

Why is Search important?How to make a Search friendly site Search enable your ASP.NET site Search Sitemaps and dynamic dataImproving your Search experience with Live

Search Engines Drive a lot of Traffic

Direct, 30%Google, 30%

Yahoo, 12%

MSN\Live, 3%

Other, 25%

Site Referrals Q1-Q4 2006

"Search" is the new "Browse"

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

47% Search

33% Browse

13% Abandon

When you’re looking for specific information on an unfamiliar website…

Forrester Research, forrester.com. “It’s time to update site search functionality”, 5/1/2006, Iris Cremers

How to Make a Search Friendly Site Crawlers index HTML text and follow links

Crawlers visit your site on a regular basis and index for new contentDetermine relevancy relative to the rest of the web

Make pages for usersProduce well formed HTML for your websiteUse text words for key terms as crawlers can't index imagesEnsure Title and ALT tags are descriptive

Handle Title in ASP.NET Master and Content pages

Meta tags that accurately describes the page contentsKeep links functional and simple

How to Make a Search Friendly Site Dynamic content

Simple URLs with small number of parametershttp://www.somesite.com/view.aspx?ItemID=22http://www.somesite.com/movies/view.aspx

Review site in Lynx text browser to ensure crawlers have a text rendering for high end features

JavaScript, AJAX, Flash, Silverlight

Help the Crawler index the right pagesrobots.txt – specify which directories to include/excludeSitemap – specify page relative priority, change frequency, last modified

Search Enable Your ASP.NET SiteSearchDataSource

Natural binding of UI elements for search inputEnables data binding of search resultsStyle to your website to provide consistent experience

Search ProvidersLive Search (formally MSN Search)Sample code for Index Server, Yahoo, …Look at the QuickStarts on how to write your own search provider

Add Search to an ASP.NET website

Write a custom search providerJonathan HawkinsArchitectASP.NET

demo

<asp:TextBox ID="TextBoxSearch" runat="server"></asp:TextBox><asp:Button ID="ButtonSearch" runat="server" OnClick="ButtonSearch_Click“ Text="Search" /> <asp:SearchDataSource ID="SearchDataSource1" runat="server" > <SelectParameters> <asp:ControlParameter

ControlID="TextBoxSearch" Name="query" PropertyName="Text“ Type="Object" />

</SelectParameters></asp:SearchDataSource> <asp:GridView ID="GridView1" runat="server" DataSourceID="SearchDataSource1"></asp:GridView>

Code: SearchDataSource

Search SitemapsEnable search engine crawlers to find information in your siteSitemaps provide suggestions to search enginesSpecify priority of the URL relative to the other pages in your siteSpecify how frequently the page is likely to changeSpecify last modified date timePartition sitemaps with a sitemap indexSupported by major search enginesSee http://sitemaps.org/protocol.html for details

ASP.NET, Sitemaps and Dynamic DataTurn your ASP.NET navigation sitemap into a search sitemapAdd application dynamic data to search site map

URL to the web pagequery string parametersSitemap priority, change frequency and last modified dateCustomize with databinding and formatting

Turn Navigation Sitemap into Search Sitemap

Add dynamc data to Search SitemapJonathan HawkinsArchitectASP.NET

demo

Search Enabling Silverlight Web Applications

Jonathan HawkinsArchitectASP.NET

demo

Live Search for DevelopersSearch query language

http://search.live.com/docs/help.aspx?t=SEARCH_REF_AdvSrchOperators.htm

Search macros (similar to stored procedures)

http://search.live.com/macros

AJAX web search controlhttp://search.live.com/siteowner

SOAP APIhttp://dev.live.com/livesearch/sdk

Web, Image, News, Phonebook, and MetaTagsSamples, samples, samples

C#, Java, PHP, Ruby, Python, Flash

Commerical Terms of Use

Live Search Supporting Broad Commercial Use

Max Queries/ Day: 25,000

Max Queries/ Second: 10

Best effort service level agreement

Online support: http://forum.microsoft.com

Example

ReferencesWeb Masters

http://help.live.com/help.aspx?project=wl_webmasters

https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

http://www.google.com/webmasters

Developershttp://dev.live.com/LiveSearch http://developer.yahoo.com/search/http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxsearch/web.html

Sitemapshttp://sitemaps.org/protocol.html

Summary

Add Search and SiteMaps to your site today!Live Search

USB Key in your attendee bagLearn more - http://search.live.comFeedback - http://forum.microsoft.com

ASP.NET Futures CTP Download CTP todayLearn more - http://ajax.asp.netFeedback - http://forums.asp.net/

Please fill out your eval

evaluation

© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions,

it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

Back Up

<microsoft.web.preview> <searchSiteMap enabled="true"> <providers> <add name="Navigation"

type="Microsoft.Web.Preview.Search.AspNetSiteMapSearchSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.Web.Preview"/> <add name="Product" type="ProductSiteMapData, App_Code" targetUrl="Product.aspx“queryStringDataFields="ProductID" /></providers> </searchSiteMap></microsoft.web.preview>

<system.web> <httpHandlers> <add verb="*" path="SearchSiteMaps.axd“ type="Microsoft.Search.SearchSiteMapHandler" validate=“false"/> </httpHandlers></system.web>

public class ProductSiteMapData : DynamicDataSearchSiteMapProvider{ // Return a collection of results. // Use LINQ, ADO.NET, your code to make a collection public override IEnumerable DataQuery() { String connectionString = “…”;

Northwind db = new Northwind(connectionString); Table<Product> Products = db.Products;

var q = from p in Products where p.UnitsInStock > (p.ReorderLevel * 10) select p;

return q; }}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"> <sitemap>  <loc>http://example.com/Northwind/SearchSiteMaps.axd?sitemap=Product</loc>   <lastmod>2007-04-03T08:24:00.169Z</lastmod>   </sitemap> <sitemap>  <loc>http://example.com/Northwind/SearchSiteMaps.axd?sitemap=Category</loc>   <lastmod>2007-04-03T08:24:00.169Z</lastmod>   </sitemap> <sitemap>  <loc>http://example.com/Northwind/SearchSiteMaps.axd?sitemap=Navigation</loc>   <lastmod>2007-04-03T08:24:00.169Z</lastmod>   </sitemap></sitemapindex>

Site Map Index: SearchSiteMaps.axd

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"> <url> <loc>http://localhost:52062/Northwind/Product.aspx?ProductId=4</loc> </url> <url> <loc>http://localhost:52062/Northwind/Product.aspx?ProductId=8</loc> </url>…</urlset>

Dynamic Data in the SiteMap

Creating a Custom Search EngineKeywords

contains: inanchor: language:

filetype: inbody: loc:, location:

feed:, hasfeed: intitle: prefer:

meta: inurl: {frsh=100}

macro: ip: {popl=100}

site: {mtch=100}

Symbols

+ & AND

- NOT

| OR

“”

()

http://search.live.com/macros

Open Search Standard InfoOpen Search Standard: http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/

JavaScript: window.external.AddSearchProvider('http://www.nasa.gov/nasa-opensearch.xml');

Configuration File:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">

<ShortName>NASA Space Image Search</ShortName>

<Description>Search NASA.gov for the latest space photos.</Description>

<Url type="text/html" template="http://www.nasa.gov/search?q={searchTerms}" />

</OpenSearchDescription>