Enterprise search with Apache Solr, Elasticsearch und Co. Let your site visitors find content even faster...

The costs for an individual search function are difficult to narrow down across the board and always depend on the complexity and handling or uniformity of the expected database. For very branched content structures, the implementation is more costly than for pages with one or two dominant content types.

In general, the basis of the search function is also crucial, as this may incur software licensing costs. For TYPONiels, I use the software Apache Solr, which is an open source product and therefore free of charge. Costs are only incurred for the set-up, connection to your system and the desired customisations and individualisations. As a rule, you can calculate with 2 to 5 person-days.

Search solutions such as Apache Solr, ElasticSearch and Algolia offer your site visitors a high user experience, especially since they are really fast, deliver more accurate hits compared to database search and come up with features such as typo correction, search suggestions, facets, dynamic rankings and paid results.

But when does it actually make sense to introduce an enterprise search solution, especially since there are corresponding costs for implementation and operation. Good reasons here can be, for example:

• The website has large amounts of content that overwhelm the user
• The navigation structure is very convoluted and cannot be mapped in a few levels
• The website should work a lot with dynamic content and uses lists with filters
• Several websites are operated, which are to play out content across the board
• The website has very high access numbers and the database is the bottleneck

An enterprise search solution can also be a real game-changer for the corporate website of a small or medium-sized company:

• Content can be dynamically displayed in aggregated form after implementation of appropriate templates without additional programming effort.
• Relevant content / recommendations can be easily implemented
• Complex multi-level facets can be implemented faster
• Frequently required functions such as filters, pagination, sorting and a search field with autosuggest (suggestions when typing) are often already implemented and can thus be directly adopted and modified if necessary

The websites of medium-sized and large companies have become much more sophisticated today than they were 15 years ago and generally follow a fairly similarly structured approach in which content is divided into sections, but then output elsewhere (usually prepared) as well.

In development, this approach is usually associated with a high level of programming effort, since the data must first be put into the correct form, as well as all desired functions such as dynamic facets, filters, a pagination or highlighting (Paid Content/ Elevation) must be implemented themselves. For large websites with many content types, this is a lengthy and time-consuming process, which in my opinion can be implemented very well with a powerful search solution such as Apache Solr or Elasticsearch. These systems already come with many useful functions for aggregating and preparing content out of the box and are also much faster than classic database queries (with relations).

Are you curious? Then take a look at my ThinkDigital blog. This blog uses the search solution Apache Solr to display the list view with facets, rubric pages and the relevant posts on the detail page.

I would be happy to advise you on the possible uses of an enterprise search solution such as Apache Solr for flexible aggregation of customized content.