CrownPeak Search – How Does It Work?

CrownPeak Search is designed to be the easiest-to-use and easiest to manage site search system available.   CrownPeak does all of the work to set the system up, and then manages and supports the system over time.  CrownPeak Search operates remotely from the live web site(s). 

When a search request is made, results are actually returned from the CrownPeak servers.  The results page is completely customized to be a part of the original site, so to the searcher, it is a completely “in-site” experience.  CrownPeak is totally platform independent.  Better yet, our customers don’t need to buy, install or support any hardware or software – ever.

How Is CrownPeak Search Implemented?

Implementation of CrownPeak Search is fast and easy.   CrownPeak Search starts by reading or “spidering” all of a site’s content.   Unlike most search systems that simply create an index of the site’s content, CrownPeak Search works to understand that content using powerful language and semantic modeling techniques.  By understanding each piece of content, CrownPeak Search can also understand relationships between content.  It enables the search system to automatically answer questions like, “what content is similar to this content” or “are there groups or clusters of content that are conceptually related”, or “what other content is linked to this content?” 

Because the application and all of the data lives entirely in memory, results are incredibly fast.  CrownPeak shares the application and the data across multiple machines, adding redundancy and speed.  The server with the fastest response time is the server that delivers on the next request.  Because data lives on multiple machines, a crashed machine has no effect on performance.  And, because the application is hosted with IBM’s highly secure, Tier 1 data centers, our systems are highly reliable.   

Once CrownPeak has spidered the site, the second step is to insert a small chunk of HTML into every spot on a site where a search box needs to appear.  That code can be inserted into every page, or can be added into a standard navigation header or other “include” type file.  Here’s an example of what that code might look like:

<form action="http://search.crownpeak.com/cpt_search/result_1">
<input type="hidden" name="account" value="[your account id]">
<b>Search My Site</b><br>
<input size=20 type="text" name="keywords"><br>
<input type="submit" value="Search">
</form>

CrownPeak can insert that code for our clients, or our clients can do it themselves. 

Finally, CrownPeak creates the results page or pages and configures the system.  For example, CrownPeak can limit search to specific sections.  Or, search results can be set-up so that only people with the permission to access that piece of content will see it in the search results.  CrownPeak can expand results to show related content or clusters of content related by concepts.  CrownPeak can manually promote specific results to appear when a keyword or list of keywords is entered.  And so on.  CrownPeak takes complete responsibility for making search work exactly as our clients need it to.

How is CrownPeak Search Managed?

Many search vendors tell their customers that they need to devote a significant amount of time and energy to establishing and maintaining an accurate search system.  CrownPeak also feels that management is extremely important.  However,  CrownPeak believes that, with guidance from our clients, it’s CrownPeak’s responsibility to make sure the system is highly reliable and highly accurate.  Clients are free to manage their content, without having to think about the technology.

Once CrownPeak Search is live and operational, CrownPeak schedules a quarterly session with clients to perform a system tune-up. CrownPeak experts work with clients to review system performance, system usage, and to provide recommendations on how to tune the search system to its best advantage. 

In the background, the CrownPeak Search system itself is also constantly improving.  Another unique and critical feature of CrownPeak Search is its ability to learn.  Initially, when CrownPeak Search is launched, it uses its powerful algorithms to determine what results are most likely to be relevant.  Over time, the system tracks every user interaction.  Words that are frequently searched together or in sequence are likely to have an increased affinity for each other.  Results that are frequently selected when a particular word is searched can be determined to be more relevant.

It’s this combination of human management and machine intelligence which makes CrownPeak Search truly unique.  Machine learning can provide gradual improvements over time, but there is no substitute for human interaction and monitoring.  With regular tune-ups, CrownPeak helps clients to have discipline in making the adjustments and decisions that machines can’t make.    

How Does CrownPeak Manage Security?

The most important segment of security management is making sure search results for secure content aren’t presented to those who aren’t allowed to see that content.

With CrownPeak Search, clients can categorize each page on their site according to which user groups are allowed to see that page.  Then, when a user issues a query, the system checks with the site to get the list of groups for the current user and only returns the document links that the current user is allowed to see.  This powerful feature is great for extranets and intranets.

Of course, CrownPeak also manages the hardware, software, and network security of our Search system on a  24-7-365 basis.  We guarantee these procedures as part of our SLA (Service Level Agreement).

What is the Time and Effort Commitment?

CrownPeak takes responsibility for creating customized searches and search results pages, and for tuning CrownPeak Search as part of the standard implementation fee.  CrownPeak is also happy to insert the search code into each page of the site, or configure security options.  We bill hourly for those services.  CrownPeak works together with its customers to make decisions about how the search system will work specifically for their business.    

After the system is live, CrownPeak is there to answer questions or make any requested adjustments to the system.  Of course, in the background, CrownPeak manages, supports and upgrades the search system all the time.  Once a quarter in the first year and once every six months following, CrownPeak recommends a system tuning session.  The tuning session typically lasts 1 to 2 hours.  In that session, the team reviews all of the relevant system reports to uncover any areas for possible improvement.  Then, CrownPeak and the client make joint decisions on how to move forward, and CrownPeak adjusts the system to improve results or configurations wherever possible.  We typically build these sessions and system improvements into the standard monthly fees.

So in other words, client commitment to getting search live is typically participation in planning sessions, reviewing search results pages, and then participating quarterly in the tune-up sessions.  With the CrownPeak process, clients are able to provide all of the input necessary to get a customized system, without bothering with any of the details or technical minutiae required by other search companies.

What Other Services Can CrownPeak Search Provide?

The CrownPeak Search System provides a whole range of features not normally included in search offerings.  Here are a few examples:

Custom Directories: CrownPeak Search can spider a list of external sites (or just segments of external sites) and create a directory of those sites.  This can be particularly useful when a client has a series of sites and wants to share content between them.

Vertical Search: Expanding the idea of Custom directories, CrownPeak can spider hundreds or even thousands of external sites to deliver a true Vertical Portal or Vertical Search system.

Related Content: Because CrownPeak Search reads and “understands” many things about a site’s content, we can display links to related content as part of any page on a site.  Likewise, we can display “back links”, or links to other documents on the site that link in to that document.  This feature can also be spread across multiple sites.

Custom Indexes: The CrownPeak Search system can read a site or a section of a site and then display a new type of index for that content.  For example, the system could find the Author of each page (when possible), and create a new directory for that content, sorted by author.  Or, the system could read a section of a site and display an index for the content by concepts – built up by CrownPeak Clustering technology.  In short, any element of content that exists on multiple pages can be used to create a new type of index.  This can help to provide visibility to “hidden” pages.