iPlanet Compass Server Glossary

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The following terms are used in this user's guide.

author

The person or organization that originally created a document. Note: iPlanet Compass Server uses a document's Using the <Author> Meta Tag tag to identify the author. If the document does not have such a tag, the server does not know who the author is even if the document contents contain a by-line.

browse

To navigate among categories and their subcategories to pinpoint the resources you want to search for.

category

A logical grouping of related resources by subject matter in the iPlanet Compass Server. Each resource can be assigned to more than one category. Categories can also have subcategories.

Category Browser

A iPlanet Compass Server tool that allows you to view and navigate your site's categories and category structure at a glance. See also Category Browser and Working With Categories.

criteria

The keywords, phrases, operators, or other factors that you want to search for. Documents that meet your criteria are displayed in the search results lists.

current category

At any given moment, your iPlanet Compass Server is "in" (or looking at) a particular category. That is your "current category." Category and subcategory names displayed on your Search page are all relative to your current category. See Your Current Category.

document

As used here, any kind of information on the network that someone might want to locate. For example, web pages, word processing documents, web sites, and so forth. iPlanet Compass Server locates and indexes documents so that you can easily search for them. In this context, document and resource mean the same thing.

expiration date

An expiration specifies when a document is to be dropped from the Compass index. Expiration dates are specified with an <Expire> Meta Tag

formal title

The document title that readers see when they view the document. (In print-on-paper media, a formal title is the only kind of title a document has.) For comparison, see search title.

index

• Noun. A set of information about network documents maintained by iPlanet Compass Server. The Compass index is analagous to a library's card catalog system; for each network document there is an entry in the index giving the search title, location, keywords, and other information about that document. The system administrator determines which resources iPlanet Compass Server will include in the index.
  
• Verb. Used to describe the process by which iPlanet Compass Server gathers and orders information about resources available on the network.
  

keywords

Keywords are words or phrases that identify a document's contents. You use Compass to search for documents containing the keywords you are interested in. See About Keywords.

META information

META information is data about the document (as opposed the document's contents). Some META information is embedded in the document itself, and some is generated by the server that holds the document. See Working With META information

operator

A special word or symbol typed between the words in search criteria. Operators are used to modify the way the search engine treats those words. For example, there are operators to match special patterns, look for word variants, and so on. For a complete description of the operators available, see Search Syntax.

resource

Any information on the network that you might want to locate. For example, a web page or a word-processing document. iPlanet Compass Server locates and indexes resources so you can easily search for them. In this context, resource and document are used to mean the same thing.

search

To look for a specific kind of resource, based on specified keywords or other criteria.

search phrase

Two or more keywords in a specified order. When you enter multiple words enclosed by quotation marks in a search box, Compass searches for those words as a phrase (those words in that order). For example, if you search for the phrase "declaration of independence," you will only find documents with those three words in that order. But if you search for the keywords declaration of independence (no quotes), you will find documents that contain those words, but not necessarily in that order. See also criteria and Search Hints.

search title

The document title that Compass uses for searching and display. The search title may or may not be the same as the document's formal title. Search titles are specified with the <Title> meta tag See Document Titles and Using the <Title> Meta Tag for additional information.

subcategory

A category that is a more specific part of the category that contains it. For example, a category called "Departments" might contain subcategories called "Engineering," "Finance," and "Marketing."

Titles

See formal title and search title.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

A document's address on the network. iPlanet Compass Server and browsers use URLs to find and display documents.

wildcard

Special characters used in search keywords that can match any character or string of characters. You can use wildcards to match various patterns of words or letters.