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Can we display Website Names with links directly to URLs in Search Results

Explorer ,
Nov 17, 2014 Nov 17, 2014

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I do not see an option for URLs to display in Search Results. This is the behavior our users are asking for:  If a URL (I've got the link in a topic) would display in the search results, the user could then click on the link to take them to that external site.

There is no option to display URLs in search results in the WebHelp or HTML5 publishing options. My users don't want to have to click a link to take them to an html topic and then have to click again on the URL to get to the external site. They want to be able to see the URL in the search results, click and go immediately to the site.

I even turned on external site searching but didn't see anything in the results. Perhaps I'm not doing it right. This has never been an issue before on any other project that I've developed.

Is there anything I can do to give them what they want?

Deb

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LEGEND , Nov 17, 2014 Nov 17, 2014

Hi Deb

What you are looking for is indeed the External Site search.

What version of RoboHelp are you using?

Cheers... Rick

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LEGEND ,
Nov 17, 2014 Nov 17, 2014

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Hi Deb

What you are looking for is indeed the External Site search.

What version of RoboHelp are you using?

Cheers... Rick

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Explorer ,
Nov 17, 2014 Nov 17, 2014

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Thanks Rick. I'm using RoboHelp11. Sorry. I should have indicated that. I know better. Thanks for your help. Does the WebHelp need to be sitting on a server for me to test if the external search is working? I was just doing a generate without from the laptop without actually publishing to a server. Perhaps that is why I am not getting any search results from external websites?

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LEGEND ,
Nov 17, 2014 Nov 17, 2014

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Hello again

Nope, to the best of my knowledge, this function should not require being on the server. The search should still find the sites assuming all is working.

Just to double-check here. You have configured one or more entries in the View > Pods > External Content Search.

tmp1.png

And there aren't any build tags possibly excluding the term?

And you are certain that the External Content Search has been selected in the WebHelp > Search settings you see before you generate:

tmp2.png

Cheers... Rick

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Explorer ,
Nov 17, 2014 Nov 17, 2014

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Thanks for the advice. I haven't done anything with the View > Pods > External Content Search. And yes I definitey turned on the Enable External Content Search.

I appreciate your knowledge Rick. I've always found it useful.

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LEGEND ,
Nov 17, 2014 Nov 17, 2014

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Ahhh, okay so just a bit of background.

It sounds to me as if you were aware that External Content Search existed and perhaps your thought was that by enabling it, somehow maybe a search from inside RoboHelp WebHelp would also perform a Google search or something akin to it?

Note that basic WebHelp search occurs by searching all the words that are on all the pages of your help. The process of generating WebHelp creates the "search index" used. Essentially, it's a giant database of all the words and the pages that contain those words.

What you do with External Content Search is to program the search terms you anticipate the user may enter. And as you can see from the dialog above, you point to the URL those terms would map to. You also enter what you want displayed as the Title and the description when the search is actually performed. In this case, if the user searched for the term "bobby", the result shown would be to present the Title of WillowBob and the description in the search results area. But none of the terms appearing in the destination site would appear. In order for that to happen, RoboHelp would have to crawl the site and build a more massive search index.

Hopefully that helps... Rick

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Explorer ,
Nov 18, 2014 Nov 18, 2014

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Thank you Rick. This is all new to me actually. Until yesterday, I did not know about the External Content Search (pod). I do believe this is what I've been looking for to give my client what they want. After using RoboHelp for about 15 years, we all tend to use what we actually need. Now I've learned something about RoboHelp that I didn't know about thanks to you. Thanks again.

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Explorer ,
Jun 05, 2015 Jun 05, 2015

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Is there a way to point RH at an existing index file?  Like say a SharePoint index or maybe another third party Version Control tool?  Also on RH 11.

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LEGEND ,
Jun 05, 2015 Jun 05, 2015

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Hi Jeff

Your post sounds as if it should be a thread of its own. As such, I'm unclear on what you are trying to achieve. Can you please expound on it? What is meant when you ask if there is a way to "point RH at an existing index file?". Do you mean to import some content into RoboHelp? You also mention version control. Are you wanting to implement version control with RoboHelp?

Cheers... Rick

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