Search is hard. There are solutions in the Drupal community that attempt to simplify the problem of creating engaging search experiences, however it is important to understand the general concepts and challenges associated with search in order to make the best decisions possible. The danger of implementing solutions without a fundamental understanding of search can lead to poor user experiences, really long development cycles, and even downtime caused by issues that are near impossible to debug. The primary goals of this sessions are to open up the black box that is search, discuss the concepts and techniques that search experts outside of Drupal use to overcome common challenges, and how they can be applied to Drupal.

The session will start off by giving an overview of how search works and highlighting the various concepts and components that are applicable regardless of the search engine / service being used. I will then explore the patterns and best-practice techniques that are employed across the web and discuss how they can be applied to Drupal. The session will end with an overview of the common issues that the organization I work for encounters supporting thousands of search enabled sites and how to either resolve the problems or adjust the thinking of how they should be solved to achieve the end goal.

The intended audience is people who are in charge of building or administering search experiences with Drupal. It is not a code-focused session, however it is applicable to coders and non-coders alike who are mystified by search and want a better understanding of the technologies they are working with.