What’s on the Sitecore Search roadmap? Search was one of the big announcements for the digital experience provider last week.
As consumers (and, really, as humans), we “search” for so many things: restaurants, recipes, clothes, cars, homes, vacations, music, television, movies, answers, even the meaning of life. We’re constantly asking on platforms like Google, YouTube, Amazon, Alexa, Siri, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and everything in between.
Search is everywhere, and we hope its results are omniscient. It’s no surprise that search engines that power enterprise websites and applications are big business and provide huge opportunities, especially in our current composable digital landscape. Composable’s focus on best-in-breed technologies for each layer of your technology stack excels in a powerful, plug-and-play solution like search.
Endless Search for Search Functions
It’s with this knowledge that Sitecore’s headline announcement about Sitecore® Search — as part of its annual Sitecore Symposium meeting last week in Chicago — makes sense. With the so-called decoupling of monolithic, all-in-one systems happening across the industry, Sitecore attempts to elegantly build a stack within the de rigueur composable frameworks of the moment. The search, in addition to announcements around headless CMS options and low-code/no-code drag and drop “Sitecore Connect” integrations, is a worthy move to build this future.
There are plenty of statistics available that point to the benefits and positive (and profitable) consumer experience of having a robust internal search offering (such as here and here). Whether it comes down to conversions, usage, purchase intent, or negative experiences from a lack thereof, good internal search is good business. There are also insightful and actionable business insights that can be gleaned — particularly for marketing teams — from the site’s internal search intelligence. They also usually appear in beautiful intuitive dashboards and visualizations.
Related Article: 4 Key Announcements at Sitecore Symposium 2022
Controlling Search Functions within the Enterprise
Sitecore’s offering — based on its acquisition of the Reflektion company last year — promises AI (or artificial intelligence) powered search that will deliver hyper-relevant content and predictive, type-ahead capabilities, all doing , according to its press release, for “an intelligent plug-and-play solution that can be applied to an existing website in hours.” The search capability to plug in and seamlessly complement the a content management system, application, or commerce platform is what makes it so powerful and natural for composability.
In recent years, search has required high investment and customization to be implemented in a comprehensive and meaningful way. The current landscape, boasting companies that can focus profitably and exclusively on this domain, such as Coveo and SearchStax, has put efficient and fully featured internal search in the hands of all manner of organizations.
Sameer Maggon, founder and CEO of SearchStax, said the level of search accessibility and out-of-the-box integration for organizations is “groundbreaking.” SearchStax, which is also used by companies that run Adobe Experience Manager, Acquia, Drupal, Moodle, and custom-built websites and applications, counts Sitecore as a key partner and one that “will continue for the foreseeable future. ”
Maggon agrees that the announcement of Sitecore Search is a further validation of the technology category. “Search is undergoing a resurgence as modernization requires organizations to push to become better at search…Sitecore has always recognized the need for better Search, which is why they’ve had partners like Coveo and SearchStax .”
Maggon sees Sitecore’s composable pivot as a positive development. “It’s great to see Sitecore moving toward a model where it allows customers to provide optional software that best fits their needs,” he said. “This gives customers the ability to carry the right product for their use without limiting their options.”
Related Article: Sitecore Symposium Attendees and CX Professionals Share 2023 CX Priorities
Unify Siled Content
Coveo is another key search provider for Sitecore customers, in addition to headline integrations with Salesforce, Adobe, SAP, ServiceNow, Slack, and many others. On the announcement of Sitecore Search and what it means for the growing importance of the search industry, Nicolas Bordeleau, VP of Products at Coveo asserted:
“Organizations of all sizes are beginning to understand the critical importance of effective search in their digital experiences. In fact, research shows that 99% of companies struggle to deliver relevant search results to their end users, meaning a direct impact on revenues, costs, and overall experience. Large organizations with siled content, complex web management systems and multiple brand sites need a secure, scalable, and closed-loop solution that goes beyond search. They need an intelligent solution that can unify siled content, learn from user behavior, and use AI to suggest content to users where they are, even before they search.”
As Sitecore adds its own search product to the composable mix, questions remain — as of this conference week’s writing — regarding pricing and the optimal use cases. But the announcement of Sitecore Search makes abundantly clear the growing importance of search as a technology category. It also indicates that the focused and strategic use of search can be a decisive step in the composable future of the enterprise organization.