Basic Terms in SharePoint Search

Basic Terms in SharePoint Search

Search Topology

It is a combination of several topology components, all of which provide specific functionality required for Search to operate.
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What is crawling?

Crawling is the process that the SharePoint Server uses to access the data within the content source and build the search index.
Once a content source has been defined within the system, an administrator can define specific schedules by which the content will be crawled.
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What is index?

An index is the location that contains details on all the information in the content sources. When users perform searches, the index is queried for content that matches the user-entered terms.

The index is comprised of both the metadata and content of the files contained within the system.

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What is query?

When you conduct a search by entering a keyword or phrase into one of the available search boxes,you are creating a query.
This query will be performed against the content index to identify content that contains a match for a keyword or phrase that you have entered.
The search system will return a listing of items that match your query. These are referred to as search results.
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How the Search Results work?

For the search you conducted, you entered a search query in the search box. The search query was conducted against the search index, and all SharePoint content that contained the term “sales”
was returned as part of the search results.