Configure authoritative pages (Office SharePoint Server)

Applies To: Office SharePoint Server 2007

This Office product will reach end of support on October 10, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see , Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

Topic Last Modified: 2016-11-14

Authoritative pages affect how relevance rankings for items are calculated, which affects the order that search results appear in a search results list. Relevance rankings for items are determined in part by the distance (in clicks) that items are from URLs that are listed as authoritative, second-level authoritative, or third-level authoritative. The latter two types of URLs receive a penalty click of one and two, respectively. That is, being close to a third-level authoritative URL is good but it is one click worse than being close to a second-level authoritative URL. The same is true for a second-level authoritative URL and a most authoritative URL.

You can also mark URLs as non-authoritative so that they appear lower in the search results list. The demotion is not accomplished by using a click-distance penalty.

To specify Web pages as authoritative

Use the following procedure to specify Web pages as authoritative.

Specify Web pages as authoritative

1. Complete one of the following steps depending on the status of your installation.

   • If the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers is installed, in Central Administration, on the Quick Launch, in the Shared Services Administration group, click a shared service.

     On the Shared Services Administration page, in the Search section, click Search administration.

     On the Search Administration page, on the Quick Launch, in the Queries and Results section, click Authoritative pages.

     Note

     For more information, see Description of the Microsoft Office Servers Infrastructure Update (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=121886).

   • If the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers is not installed, in Central Administration, on the Quick Launch, in the Shared Services Administration group, click a shared service.

     On the Shared Services Administration page, in the Search section, click Search settings.

     On the Configure Search Settings page, in the Authoritative Pages section, click Specify authoritative pages.

2. On the Specify Authoritative Pages page, in the Most authoritative pages box in the Authoritative Web Pages section, type the URLs that are central or authoritative and separate the URLs by returns so each line has one URL.

3. In the Second-level authoritative pages box, type the URLs that are secondary.

4. In the Third-level authoritative pages box, type the URLs that are tertiary.

5. In the Non-authoritative Sites section, in the Sites to demote box, type the URLs that you want to mark as unimportant when search results are returned.

   For example, you might type the URLs of sites that contain outdated information but are retained for record-keeping.

   All URLs or items whose prefixes match the provided URLs in the Sites to demote box is demoted.

   Note

   If you want the ranking calculations to begin after you click OK, select the Refresh now check box in the Refresh Now? section. If the check box is cleared, ranking calculations occur according to a predetermined schedule

6. Click OK.

See Also

Concepts

Manage settings to improve search results (Office SharePoint Server)