If you use Tags to group related content together, encourage your readers to use a tag search to view those articles.
This can be a great form of search if you use tags for specific departments, products, teams, or features.
To run a tag search, enter a colon (:) into the search box and begin entering a tag name.
The search bar autosuggests tags based on what you've typed.
Once you select a tag, the full search results page displays articles that have the given tag.
For example, try this link: https://support.knowledgeowl.com/help/search?phrase=:synced%20content
Below, we walk through some of the finer points of tag searches.
Single tag search only
Tag search currently supports searching by one tag only. You can't enter multiple tags in search.
Tag searches are partially case-sensitive.
If I enter :Owl, the tag search looks for articles with an Owl tag.
If no results are returned from the case-sensitive search, the tag search automatically reruns the search with the case stripped out. In our example, it would then look for an owl tag.
You can bypass any weirdness with case sensitivity by selecting the tag you want from the autosuggest list after you begin typing.
While KnowledgeOwl has no way to technically save a tag search, if you want to direct readers to a specific tag search, run the tag search you want and copy the URL that generates. For example, here's the URL for our "synced content" tag search: https://support.knowledgeowl.com/help/search?phrase=:synced%20content
Once you have that URL, direct readers to it in a way that makes sense for you:
- Share the URL directly: Paste the URL into an email, an in-app link, your Slack or Teams chat, or add it as a hyperlink directly within an article.
- Add the link to your knowledge base: If you want the link to this resource to exist permanently in your knowledge base itself, create a URL redirect article or a URL redirect category and enter the tag search URL as the URL Redirect. Any time a reader opens that article or category, they'll be taken to the full tag search results for that tag.
One of our most frequently asked questions is what is the difference between tags and search phrases. While they appear similar, they perform different functions.
Tags are used for secondary navigation
Think of tags as an alternate form of navigation or organization, separate from your categories. Tags display in full search results and can add a layer of additional context to readers trying to decide which resource they most want.
- Categories and tags are both used for organization and navigation.
- Tags are added to articles to describe what the content is and what it relates to, and articles are put into categories for the same purpose.
- Both are visible to the reader.
- Neither are indexed for search but they display in the search results to provide additional context.
- Readers can select tags or categories in search results to navigate to a list of their articles.
- Tags have their own form of search: Tag search.
Tag example
You might have a troubleshooting tag which tells you and the reader that (a) this article is about troubleshooting and (b) there are probably other articles which are about troubleshooting as well. By selecting the tag, the reader can navigate to a list of all articles with the tag troubleshooting.
You can pull up a list of all articles with a tag by doing a Tag search. The syntax to return a list of articles with a tag is :tag name. This tells the search to skip the normal search and return a list of all articles with the specified tag. Entering :troubleshooting as your search would return all articles with the troubleshooting tag.
Search phrases are like keywords
KnowledgeOwl automatically indexes many article fields for search, including the body of your article.
So you don't have to add search phrases to get things to show up.
But you can add search phrases if you want to add keywords that don't appear in the article or to make an article return higher in the search results. Refer to Use search phrases for more information on search phrases.
Search phrases aren't displayed to readers, but they are used to return search results.
Search phrase example
Linus has an article on troubleshooting computer errors. Many computer errors stem from one of the computer "death" screens, where the screen locks and you can't do anything.
If you're on a Windows computer, this is often called the blue screen of death.
If you're on a Mac, this is often called the spinning beachball (or pizza) of death.
Linus's troubleshooting article doesn't explicitly include any of these phrases. He doesn't want to have them in there, cluttering up the actual troubleshooting steps.
Instead, he can add each "of death" phrase as a search phrase. This helps guarantee his readers will get the troubleshooting page they most need without him having to include "spinning pizza of death" in his troubleshooting article.
