Search Centers in SharePoint 2013

Search Centers

In this article we can explore the basics of Search Centers.

Search Centers Are

SharePoint Out-of-the-Box comes with the following 2 site definitions:

1. Basic Search Center
2. Enterprise Search Center

These site definitions create pages with pre-configured web parts. Please note that there will be multiple pages included in the site definition:

1. Search Page
2. Result Page
3. Refiner Pages

We can use the Edit Page option to customize these pages using web parts.

Basic Search Center

Use the following procedure to create a Basic Search Center site:

From your home page choose "Site Contents" then scroll down then select the "new subsite" option.

In the page that appears enter the following details:

1. Site Title
2. Site URL
3. Site Template as Enterprise > Basic Search Center

Click the "Create" button to create the site. You will get the following site created at  http://hpvm/bsearch/default.aspx

You can enter some text to search for and you will see the results page at http://hpvm/bsearch/results.aspx

Enterprise Search Center

Use the following procedure to create an Enterprise Search Center site:

From your home page choose "Site Contents" then scroll down then select the "new subsite" option.

In the page that appears enter the following details:

1. Site Title
2. Site URL
3. Site Template as Enterprise > Enterprise Search Center

Click the "Create" button to create the site. You will get the following site created at http://hpvm/esearch.

You can enter some text to search for and you will see the results page at http://hpvm/esearch/results.aspx.

Difference between Basic and Enterprise Search Centers

Enterprise Search Centers provide the following advantages over Basic:

1. It allows searching over external contents and web applications.
2. Video search is supported
3. Enterprise Search Center provides Navigation Verticals.
4. Recommendations feature
5. Query Rules and Advanced Actions  

The following is the Navigation Vertical. Each link will take you to another result page.

Enterprise Search Center is available only in SharePoint Enterprise edition.

Result Pages

One may get confused with the result pages. I would like to provide an overview of them. By default you can search in the home page search box and you will get the following result page:

http://server/_layouts/15/osssearchresults.aspx

In the case of Basic Search Center the result page was:

http://server/bsearch/results.aspx

In the case of Basic Search Center the result page was:

http://server/esearch/results.aspx

Please note the difference in the result page name for the first URL.

References
 
 Search in SharePoint Server 2013

Summary

In this article we explored Search Centers in SharePoint 2013.