Improving kb.vmware.com search results

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

This article provides tips on how to tailor your searches to find more targeted results​.

Resolution

Search Behaviors

If you have a question or are experiencing issues with one of our products: 

• Include the product name, version and action you are trying to perform in your search query. ​​ 
• Determine the most important elements of any keyword phrase via ‘stemming’. This means working out which words in the phrase are more unique and should be given more prominence. 
  • More information on Stemming

 If you get an error message when using our products:

• Include the exact error message in your search query to get results specific to how to resolve/address the error message

If you’re not getting the required results: 

• Use descriptive words.
• Try to re-phrase your search query differently. ​ 

Search Tools:

To search for something specific and exact:​ 

• Use quotes to tell to search for the exact phrase.  
• More information on searching with quotes  

To search using the advanced operators:

• Fill in blanks, where you don’t know which keywords to use, with an asterisk * as a ‘wildcard’. 
• Example: If the ESXi element is unknown to you, replace the unknown word(s) with * 
  • Managing esxi host with vsphere client
  • Managing * host with vsphere client​
• More information on wildcards
• Show results for queries in preferred combinations of words, with Boolean Operators such as AND, OR, NOT. 
  • Example: Searching ‘Keyword 1 AND Keyword 2’ means that both keywords must be present in the results. 
  • Example ‘Keyword 1 OR Keyword 2’ means that either one of the keywords must be present on the results, but not necessarily both. 
  • Example: ‘Keyword 1 NOT Keyword 2’ will exclude keyword 2 from the results, and only show results with keyword 1 in it. 
  • More information on Boolean Operators