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Search is how most readers reach an article. Understanding what it reads changes how you write titles.
What it looks at
- The title, weighted heavily.
- The body.
- Labels, which are invisible to readers and searchable.
- Section and category names.
The title carries the most weight, which is why titling articles as the question people ask matters more than anything else you do.
It respects permissions
A reader only finds what they may see. An article restricted to signed-in customers does not appear for anonymous visitors, which is correct and is a common reason somebody cannot find something you can.
Semantic search
Newer search understands meaning rather than only matching words, so somebody searching "cannot log in" can find an article titled "Password reset". That reduces the penalty for vocabulary mismatch without removing it.
Labels for the words you would not write
Labels are searchable and invisible. That makes them the place for synonyms, old product names, common misspellings and the words customers use that you would not put in a title.
This is the most underused feature in Zendesk's help centre, and it costs nothing.
Two languages, two indexes
A reader searching in Dutch finds Dutch articles. An untranslated article is invisible to them, which is worth knowing when you decide what to translate first.
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