How does Knowledge Base search work?

C Avila · ‎06-28-2022

I want to properly train our knowledge article contributors to

A. properly document meta and to

B. understand how the relevancy score is calculated and to

C. understand how different fields effect the relevancy score in regards to the specified fields with assigned weights and those without weights

but I myself do not understand these things. So I need some clarification please.

What I’ve seen in our organization is in an increase in the repetition of the same search term in the meta field is this necessary?
I do not clearly understand if the knowledge search capability is the same as global search.
Nor, do I understand if the KB search engine understands phrases or just words.
If it understands phrases, what is the distinction between one phrase and another? a hard return, a comma, a semicolon etc.
How KB search interprets spaces, underscores, etc
Do we need multiple versions of the same word? Ex: Login, Log in, Logins, Logging in, Can’t login, Log on
I'm assuming caps vs lower case letters don't matter but can't say for certain. I see both upper versions of acronyms and then the full lower case version of the same acronym in the meta. Is this necessary?

Thank you in advance for any information you can provide!

Leri Andrews · ‎06-30-2022

There's a fair bit of documentation on how Zing works. e.g. https://docs.servicenow.com/en-US/bundle/sandiego-platform-administration/page/administer/search-administration/concept/c_ZingTextSearch.html

I don't have answers to your specific questions because I agree with you that it's a bit of a dark art, not a science (from the knowledge manager point of view).

The best advice I can give is to use the meta very sparingly and concentrate on well-written articles and upskilling your authors.

For example, you'd think it would be easy to write an article about ordering a company car and have it 'found' but no. If you're not careful the article will be titled 'Fleet ordering procedure' and refer to 'vehicles' thoughout in passive HR jargonese e.g. "The manager must ensure that the vehicle is appropriate for the incumbent....". You'll be adding 'car' and 'company car' into the meta and considering a synonym dictionary when what is really required is an article called "How to order your company car" which refers to 'car' several times.

If your well-written article is STILL not appearing very highly, then it's time to add a couple of choice keywords in the meta and perhaps review your weighting in ZING.

You can fiddle with your weightings if you want to give meta a higher weighting. You can allow the field to be amended without going through a publishing approval stage and you could set up a catalog item for meta to be approved before being added - to weed out the times people will add the word 'form' or 'HR' which are simply meaningless noise. We found that words at the front of the meta seemed more weighty and also you can add a word several times if necessary. We did end up with 'company car, car, company, vehicle, fleet, fleet vehicle' and some used spaces and some used commas and some did a line return - they all worked. I don't think capitals mattered.

Final word of caution, AI search doesn't even index meta by default (though people are asking for it, and you can if you want) so if you're moving that way it will be a bit of a waste putting your effort into meta. I'm in the position now where portal uses AI search and back end still uses Zing so we're still adding the meta (a compulsory field) but it does nothing for employees.

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Community Alums · ‎05-21-2023

Hi Avila,

were you able to find answers to your queries? Also if I want to increase the relevancy of particular article, is it possible?

Thanks,

Anu

Arnaldo · ‎05-21-2023

Hello Avila
If you are using Zing as search engine maybe you can find this article useful .

Set the relative weight of a field