However, there is always a superset of enterprise content that need access by all, and it requires its own management tools. Ideally, intranet portals will provide search access to all shareable content without the need for security, and access to selected application content with requisite security. This may be done with federated search tools that can leverage content results from embedded search engines.

Doing this well and with thoughtful build-out requires governance and a chief information architect who really understands the nuances of all the content, its security attributes and how it needs to be accessed.

A single enterprise search engine, given the right packaging and deployment can do it all, but it requires human guidance.

You are absolutely right in saying that search is becoming a feature in other software.

Yes, now you can use the search function in a array of applications. In some cases, you can make the most of the search technology without entering queries manually.

For example, Brainware’s Intelligent Data Capture solution IDC-distiller™ (http://www.brainware.com/data_capture.php) uses the embedded fuzzy search function to automatically match invoice content with a vendor list and a purchase order, even if there is no exact match.

This ‘unmanned’ search function greatly increases the proportion of payment documents that can be processed without any human ever touching them.

William is right, in that internal web sites are more about just getting the content out of people’s heads and into documents/wikis/records, while external web sites are all about being findable via Google/Yahoo/MSN - which means good linking, good keywords, good titles.

There’s another aspect, though, which has to do with the type of searching being done.

There’s search as a substitute for bookmarking, which is how I think many people use an internal search system…they know the page is there, so they just need a quick way of finding it. Because of this, tuning search results based on the user’s search history (and that of other internal users) has significant value for enterprise search. But in the end it doesn’t add all that much value.

Other types of searching, such as exploratory search, wind up having highly variable value, depending on the type of work an employee does. For many people with fairly stable routines at work, these other uses of search have little value.

On the other hand, a true knowledge worker can get a lot of value out of a search system that supports learning and exploration.

This last point is one that I’m extrapolating from our experience with developers, but it feels like it fits a general class of employees who do in fact need to be constantly learning and solving problems - in other words, the more highly compensated and valuable people in an organization.

Which is why good search can be the most effective way for a company to get more out of its key employees.

– Ken

It’s all the linking that takes place on the Web that allows Google to provide ranked results that work. In most intranets, there isn’t much linking going on. A lot of the docs are PDF, DOC, PPT, XLS with almost no links. And even HTML content tends to be link-poor (other than same-site links) compared to what you find on the real Web.

To take your example of the list of company holidays, how many pages on the company’s intranet typically point to the HR page with that information? Not many. Which is why that page is hard to find on search results (unless it is one of the common queries that has been manually configured by the search team). It is buried among pages such a question from a solutions architect in Poland asking how to configure Polish holidays in the CRM product. Back to “keyword search” level of relevance. Feels like the stone age.

Another benefit of internal blogging: making the intranet search engine smarter.