The order in which topics appear in the list of search results depends on several factors, such as the position in which the search term appears in each topic. The factors that affect a topic's ranking are listed below, in descending order of priority:
| Ranking Factor (in descending order of priority) |
Comments |
|---|---|
| The search term appears in the Topic Title. | Topic Titles comprise the text that appears at the top of each search result. They help to identify the topic and its location in the hierarchical Help structure. |
| The search term appears in a top-level heading. |
Top-level (H1) headings are used in topics that appear at the top-most level in a guide. They do not have 'parent' topics, but often include 'child' topics. In the Contents tab, when you expand the branch for a guide, H1 headings appear at the top level in that branch. |
| The search term appears in a lower-level heading (ranked in order of heading level). |
Lower-level headings (H2 to H4) are used in 'child' topics. Child topics have a 'parent' topic; lower-level child topics also have a grandparent topic. (H4 topics even a great-grandparent topic.) The position of a 'child' topic in the hierarchical Contents listing indicates its heading level—the lower down the topic entry is nested in the hierarchy, the lower its heading level. In the list of search results, the top-level topic in which a child topic is nested appears in parentheses at the end of the Topic Title. |
| The search term appears in the topic's body text. |
The frequency with which the search term appears in the body text affects the order in which the topics appear in the list of search results. Those topics in which the search term appears more frequently are placed higher up the search results list than topics in which the search term appears less frequently. Regardless of frequency, topics in which the search term only appears in the body text are placed lower in the ranking than those topics in which the search terms appear in higher-ranked topic content (such as headings). |
A topic's 'importance' can affect the ranking shown above—the more times to which a topic in the search results is linked from other topics, the higher its ranking. This is because a topic that includes multiple inward links from other topics is deemed likely to be of more importance than other topics, and so that topic is automatically moved higher up the ranking