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SharePoint 2013: Promoted Search Results

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In this post, we will explore another cool SharePoint Search Feature commonly known as “Promoted Results”.

Before diving deep into implementation details, let’s have some background on this new cool feature of SharePoint 2013 Search.

What are Promoted Results?

Since the SharePoint 2013 Search System is built up from scratch by absorbing all great features from its predecessors, one of such features is known as “Best Bets” in SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search, “Visual Best Bets” if we are using Fast Search and now “Promoted Results” in SharePoint 2013 Search Environment.

Promoted Results are triggered by one or the other conditions specified while defining the Promoted Results as we will see next in this post.

In order to define the Promoted Results we will proceed as follows:

Go to “Site Settings -> Query Rules” as shown below:

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On Manage Query Rules Page, select the appropriate Result Source suited to your needs, then click “New Query Rule” Link as shown below:

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On the “Add Query Rule” Page

  1. Specify the Rule Name
  2. Specify Query Conditions

Please note the Keyword “SharePoint” that we specified in the below configuration, this will ensure that whenever Search Query contains the Keyword “SharePoint” this Promotion will be served as a part of the search results returned as a response to this query.

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Then click “Add Promoted Results” Link

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On the “Add Promoted Result” Page,

  1. Specify the Title: Any Valid Title
  2. Specify the URL: Any valid URL of the .aspx Page with valid HTML inside it.

Check the “Render the URL as a banner instead of as a hyperlink” checkbox, this will ensure that Promotional Content will be displayed in HTML View instead as a hyperlink.
Click Save to save the changes.

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Under the “Publishing” Section,

  1. Select “Is Active” Checkbox to enable this Timeline Driven Promotion.
  2. Specify “Start Date” & “End Date” to specify the Timelines for this Promotion to be visible on top of the search results.

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And that’s it with the Configuration of New “Promoted Result”.

Final configurations would look like as shown below:

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Now it is the time to Test the “Promoted Result”.

Visit Global Search Center Site and specify the Keyword “SharePoint” as the query as shown below.

And sure enough, we will get the Promotional Result at the very top of the search results.

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So we can see how easy is to implement Promoted Results in SharePoint 2013.

Hope this will help someone in need.