Forum indexing

[Robin]

Hi,

I have to index Forum content. For each post on a particular topic, a
new URL is generated.
1. What to index - Index each post.
Cons - If I search for some text in first post, all the posts
come in search results and have same snippet and title.
2. What to index - Index each topic page
Cons - If I search for some text in the 10th post, it will come up
in snippet. But, if the user clicks on the URL, he will be taken to
the top of the page creating a bad user experience.

I have got 2 questions
a. I am unable to decide between Case 1 and Case 2 and don't know what
is the best practice/ standard as far as Forums are concerned.
b. How is the snippet generated? I searched on the internet but
couldn't find anything.

Thanks and Regards,
Robin

[Dave Watts]

> I have to index Forum content. For each post on a particular topic, a
> new URL is generated.
> 1. What to index - Index each post.
>    Cons   - If I search for some text in first post, all the posts
> come in search results and have same snippet and title.
> 2. What to index - Index each topic page
>    Cons - If I search for some text in the 10th post, it will come up
> in snippet. But, if the user clicks on the URL, he will be taken to
> the top of the page creating a bad user experience.
>
> I have got 2 questions
> a. I am unable to decide between Case 1 and Case 2 and don't know what
> is the best practice/ standard as far as Forums are concerned.

There isn't a standard, and of course there are many different types
of forum software. Using content feeds instead of a crawl, you could
potentially manipulate how users get to results.

> b. How is the snippet generated? I searched on the internet but
> couldn't find anything.

The snippet is generated at search time based on the search query - if
you run two different searches that turn up the same document, each
search will have a different snippet.

Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software
http://www.figleaf.com/
http://training.figleaf.com/

Fig Leaf Software is a Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB) on
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