How can an enterprise ensure that the taxonomy it is building will improve the relevance of search results? This question is particularly significant because barring ISO 25964, which is actually a standard for thesaurus development, there are no standards for taxonomy. In a scenario, where there is neither a right nor a wrong way to build a taxonomy, how can enterprises ensure the taxonomies they are building will serve its purpose?
According to Martin White, Managing Director of Intranet Focus, Ltd, taxonomies can play a very important role in delivering high relevance results. Therefore, before embarking on building a taxonomy, an enterprise should strive to understand what the taxonomy would bring to the search application.
“Start with an understanding of what a taxonomy will bring to the search application. Down the line, you will also need to know how the taxonomy will be ingested into the search application and how you can make any changes once it's there. Taxonomy terms are often used to drive promoted content or to weight a ranking in favor of a specific query term or group of terms. Which means you must have a search application! Too many taxonomies are built as academic exercises.”
Consequently, enterprises need to gain a deep understanding of what, why and how users are searching for information. Hence, enterprises should decide beforehand how wide and deep the top-level terms should be. In addition, they should maintain a balance between development effort and user benefit. This balance would come only by testing the taxonomy as it is being built. Furthermore, once the taxonomy is integrated into the search application, it may not be possible to decide whether the taxonomy is achieving the business objectives of the enterprise.
A best practice would be to collect user suggested terms using a form. In addition, employing a team to respond and revise the terms once the taxonomy has been integrated with the search application. Otherwise, the initial flood of terms will become a trickle when users realize that the search team is not acting on the user suggestions.
In sum, enterprises when building a taxonomy should start small, but design for expansion. Further, they should ensure the business is closely involved. Subsequent steps would involve testing and testing again to ensure employees experience a higher volume of relevant search results.
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