How can I dig deeper into why SharePoint Server 2010 is giving specific results on people search? I have an example scenario where when searching on “Jerry” (without quotes) the SharePoint Enterprise Search Center returns several people results, but the first result listed does not have “Jerry” in the name, or any other visible User Profile property. There is obviously confusion as to why this person is the first result.
I looked up the nickname mapping for “jerry”, and nothing stands out that would point to why this specific individual is the first result.
How can I figure out what SharePoint is thinking here, and provide an explanation to the business?
I spent some time investigating Ranking Models in SharePoint 2010, and have discovered it is the phonetic ranking causing the odd results. If I remove phonetic ranking from the ranking model, and apply that to the search, the odd ‘non-Jerry’ result is no longer included.
I’ll take this back to the business to talk about trade-offs and what they would like to do.
Some blogs that were helpful:
Custom Ranking Models with SharePoint 2010: Background, Value and Administrative Overview
http://sharepointplace.blogspot.com/2010/06/custom-ranking-models-w…
How to Disable Phonetic Search in SharePoint 2010 People Search
http://www.domorewithsearch.com/how-to-disable-phonetic-search-in-s…
And now ‘non-Jerry’ is back at the top again. I don’t get it…
OK – that actually made a difference. The ‘non-Jerry’ dropped in the search results to the third result. Still above the executive, but now two “Jerry”s show first.
I still can’t explain why the ‘non-Jerry’ is in the search results to begin with…
So far the focus has been this one scenario, as a high level executive’s first name is “Jerry”.
I will try deleting the ‘non-Jerry’ user profile, and re-running a full import, and then a full search crawl.
I just realized I can’t speak to how the people search results and Default sorting options work, aside from information like the Relative Search Ranking found on the page below. I don’t know why a ‘non-Jerry’ is showing up as the first result.
Build a My Site profile to help people find you
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/build-a-my-site-profile-to-help-people-find-you-HA102507597.aspx
How many scenarios are talking about? Do you get a ‘random’ user for each search query?
If not you could possibly delete the trouble users profile and re-run the import job.
