Website search and content discovery

Documentation / Search visibility and sharing

Website search helps visitors find content inside the current site. It is separate from external search-engine indexing, the sitemap, and the navigation tree.

Enable and test the interface

Site general settings include the search-display setting. Enable it where the site's active design supports the native search interface, save, and inspect the public header. A custom shared design may need its own search placement; a saved setting does not prove that every custom header renders it.

The native search endpoint accepts queries of at least two characters and a content-language parameter. It searches page titles, summaries, and text collected from the rendered page structure, including merged template content.

Understand ranking and limits

Matching title terms score above summary terms, which score above body terms. Results are ordered by score and limited to the top twenty. This is term-based matching, not a verified semantic-answer service, spell checker, or complete search of every external asset.

Text inside images, remote provider embeds, or downloaded documents is not established as searchable by this implementation. Write useful headings and summaries, and keep essential searchable content in page text.

Search filters for public-listing eligibility and the requested language. Root items also undergo availability checks. An indexing exclusion is a separate field, so do not assume it also removes an otherwise public page from native search.

Validate discovery separately

Search for a distinctive phrase in a title, a summary term, and a body term. Open the results and verify their full localized addresses, especially for nested collections. Test with an anonymous visitor session.

Use navigation and collection listings for deliberate browsing rather than relying on search alone. See Pages and navigation and Collections and content trees.