Confluence search result summary choice
Asked by sarahc:

When searching in Confluence, some of the summaries given under the page name are pretty vague, and don't really help users to know whether or not the page is relevant to their needs.

Does anyone here know how the search decides what content should be used for the summary? Or how that might be gamed to show more relevant information?


Answers:
author: Janet Dixon
body: In looking at everything provided in the previous answer by Atlassian, it doesn't answer the original question, which is the **what/how** regarding the Summary information that is displayed for pages within a Search Result. I would like to know this myself.

When I create a new page and enter a line of text immediately below the title of the page, this typically becomes what users see as the Summary for the page when appearing in a Search Result.

However...... I don't always get this. I have many pages in which the Summary displayed is text that appears further down the page and not from the top few lines. I can understand IF the first few lines on a page contain a macro, so it would skip over that until it finds actual "text". But, that doesn't seem to be the case. When I see one like this, I TRY to fix it. I edit the page and make sure what I WANT displayed as the summary in a search result IS directly below the page title and IS actual text and not displayed in any macro. The search results STILL show text that's further down the page. So??? Is the Summary configured to be displayed using the first paragraph of text on a page? Is there another method to create an alternate summary? Change how this is set in a search result....... or even set to not display in the search result?

When the Summary is all whacked out like that, visitors and users don't understand what they're getting in the results. Having a clear summary that IS the summary you WANT displayed is vital to users finding exactly what they're looking for.

All info, suggestions, etc. are welcome!

![Search Results Summary Unexpected Display.jpg](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/179107i82B7A5F16CC05643/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Search Results Summary Unexpected Display.jpg")![Search Results Summary Unexpected Display2.jpg](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/179106iF6D7D59BB891C1F6/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Search Results Summary Unexpected Display2.jpg")


author: Stephen Sifers
body: Hello Sarah,

This is a great question and it's a good one to understand how the scoring of Confluence searches work. Confluence search functionality is based on a score which weighs the following items:

* Document Age
* Title
* Content
* Popularity

Additionally, you're able to use the following URL to get the explanation/value of your keyword search:

```
http://<your confluence URL>/explain.action?queryString=keywords
```

Additional information for Confluence search may be found at the following articles:

* [How do I understand the ranking of Confluence's Search Results](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/how-do-i-understand-the-ranking-of-confluence-s-search-results-785614686.html)
* [Configuring Search](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/configuring-search-175210673.html)
* [Confluence Search Syntax](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/confluence-search-syntax-158720.html)

I hope this proves helpful and assists with clarifying how your keyword search results are displayed.

Regards,  
Stephen Sifers


Tags: confluence-server

server