Search for words that aren't complete

Question

I am a novice with SharePoint search. When I try to search for "pradeep", I get the correct results. But my requirement is that even if I type "pra" in the search, I should get the results.

How is this possible?

Answer 1

The quickest way is to add the wildcard into the Query Template in Federated Locations.

Go to Central Administration->Manage Service Applications->Search Service Application and in the left-hand menu goto Federated Locations. Click Local Search Results and in Location Information, change the Query Template from {searchTerms} to {searchTerms}*

If you need more control you can use the Wildcard Search Web Part ( http://wildcardsearch2010.codeplex.com/ ) by creating your own search results page and replacing the CoreSearchResults Web Part with the Wildcard Search Web Part. The easiest way to create your own search results page is to either copy and customise your Search Centre results page, or copy the ossSearchResults.aspx page from \14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS. You'll then have to point the Site Collection Search Results page plus any custom scope results pages to this as well.

Answer 2

The SharePoint Search does something which is called Wordbreaking and Stemming. Means that words existing of 2 or more words (for example: housewife = house % wife) are broken and added to the index. If you then search for the whole word or a part of it you will get all the results. Stemming means that SharePoint tries to find variations of a word and adds them as well to the index.

Problem with Wordbreaking & Stemming is the language dependency. And you have 2 stations of it. First when the index is build up (crawler) and second when the user queries. On user side it was dependend on the selected browser language.

So results can be different if an english document is searched by an english or an german client for example. And at least not all words can be broken or stemmed and so it might be that you not find all the vals you search for.

Like AlexPoint said with 2010 now you can use the Wildcard search as well. Unfortunately not with a leading Asterix. Only part* is possible, not *part. If you have different languages on clients now with SP2010 Search you can select the prefered query language on the search center as well.

HTH, cheers, Stefan

Answer 3

SharePoint 2010 is able to do a Prefix-Wildcard Search -you could seach for "pra*" to find pradeep. MOSS 2007 does not offer these capabilities - you will have to go for a 3rd Party Solution.