Manage the Search Center Home page (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint)
Applies to: FAST Search Server 2010
In a default installation, the Search Center home page is called http://<ServerName>/default.aspx. The field where the end-users enter the search term is called the Search Box Web Part.
Change properties for the Search Box Web Part
By changing properties for the Search Box Web Part, you can for example:
Turn query suggestions on or off
Change the appearance of the search box
Specify whether to append keyword terms or property filters to all queries
For more information, see Change properties for the Search Box Web Part (SharePoint Server 2010)
Use search scopes to narrow a search to particular locations or content
By using search scopes, end-users can search across a narrower set of content. A search scope defines a subset of information in the searchable index, and can for example direct a query to particular sites, or to items marked with particular property values.
End-users can apply the search scope by selecting a pre-defined scope from a drop-down list next to the search box (part of the Search Box Web Part), or they can specify the search scope directly in the Keyword Syntax query string by using the special property filter scope:scopename, where scope is a pre-defined property name and scopename is the name of the defined search scope.
For more information about how to use search scopes to narrow a search, see Manage search scopes (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint)
Display query suggestions as end-users type their query
Query suggestions, also known as search suggestions, help end-users see other, similar queries that have successfully returned results. A query term becomes a query suggestion when the term has returned a result that was clicked on at least six times by other users. For example, the query term FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint has returned a result that was clicked on over six times. When a user starts to type FAST in the Search Box Web Part, FAST Search for SharePoint will be displayed in a drop-down list below the Search Box.
Because query suggestions are based on end-users first searching for information and then clicking the results, it might take some time before query suggestions are displayed in your Search Center. However, you can manually create query suggestions by using Windows PowerShell.
For more information about how to use query suggestions, see Manage query suggestions (SharePoint Server 2010).