Improving search results in Confluence (Cloud)?
Asked by Shawn in Van:

Hello all,

One of the constant complaints that I have received regarding Confluence is the difficulty in finding (searching) content in Confluence. I inherited a Confluence knowledgebase of 1000's of pages in nearly 100 spaces. The first omission I noticed was that labels were not being used. However, I not completely convinced that labels are that useful. It is perplexing that one can search by label in Jira but that feature isn't available in Confluence.   

Furthermore, I've had difficulty finding any documentation that mentions labels and their ability to improve search results. For instance, this Atlassian document says nothing about labels.  
<https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/how-do-i-understand-the-ranking-of-confluence-s-search-results-785614686.html>  

There are plenty of add-on apps to improve Confluence search results, but I have not found any that are available for the Cloud addition. I did find MC+A and I have contact this company. Does anyone have experience with MC+A?  
<https://blog.servicerocket.com/adoption/blog/2014/03/confluence-search-doesnt-have-to-suck>  

I'll be extremely grateful if anyone can provide ways (tips, best practices, or add-ons) that will help improve Confluence search results.  

Thank you.


Answers:
author: Shannon S
body: Hello Shawn,

Searching by label is a feature in Confluence. Have a look at the following:

* [Searching for labels](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/confluence-search-syntax-158720.html#ConfluenceSearchSyntax-Searchingforlabels)
* [Add, Remove, and Search for labels](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/add-remove-and-search-for-labels-136419.html#Add,RemoveandSearchforLabels-Searchbylabel)

The below articles mention how to use labels to organize your site better which will, in turn, help with search results:

* [Using Labels](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confeval/confluence-evaluator-resources/confluence-using-labels)
* [Use labels to organize your content](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/use-labels-to-organize-your-content-724764874.html)

I would encourage you to review the [Confluence search syntax](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/confluence-search-syntax-158720.html) page that I linked above. It reviews how to search with CQL which will help improve the results you need when searching within Confluence.

Let us know if you have any questions!

Regards,

Shannon

comments: author: Shawn in Van
body: Thank you Shannon. Your post was very useful.


author: Cortlandt _
body: The first two links take me to pages for Data Center.  
Clicking the Cloud tab goes to a general setup page without info about searching or ranking.


author: Vicki Lea Tsang
body: [@Shawn in Van](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/704918) Also curious about MC+A. Did you find anything out about them?

comments: author: Shawn in Van
body: Hi [@Vicki Lea Tsang](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1172215) - Sorry for the slow response. I think they are a solutions consultant. But we decided not to pursue any business with them because it would have required opening up our highly protected data to a third party company.  

Sorry, I can't help. We are currently looking at what it would take to write our own plugin that will help improve searching. I'll follow up a bit later.


Tags: confluence-cloud

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