About help center end user search



image avatar

Jennifer Rowe

Zendesk Documentation Team

Edited May 05, 2025


25

57

58 comments

Hi, is there a way to disable categories and articles under those categories from showing in search results?

0


Hi 5604330091162,

Instant search is the search method used only while the user is typing in the search box. That search method uses titles only, not body text or labels.

 

As soon as a user types a search term and presses Return/Enter, then native Help Center search is used. That search method includes titles, body text, and labels.

 

 

0


I'm curious if the current table ranking and scores it correct. I read in the Understanding help center search methods article that the Instant search, which is the default search method, does not search body text or labels of articles. See snippet below. 

 

So do labels help and get ranked in the user searches, yes or no?

 

Instant search:

  • Uses a partial word search
  • Includes article titles only, not body text or labels of articles
  • Does not include community posts

0


I spent some time working through the limitations of labels and, although not the most elegant solution, I found a method that works well. I’m sharing it here for others who may be facing similar issues.

The approach involves manually boosting the search ranking by adding hidden, repetitive sentences to the document. For example, if you want a page to rank higher when searching for the term “scan depth,” you can add the following hidden sentence multiple times at the end of the source code.

 

<p>
  <span hidden="hidden">The scan depth can be adjusted as follows according to the scanner type:</span>
  <span hidden="hidden">The scan depth can be adjusted as follows according to the scanner type:</span>
  <!-- Repeat this sentence about 30 times -->
</p>

After adding this hidden sentence about 30 times, the page consistently appeared at the top of search results for “scan depth.”   

Hope Zendesk provides a more elegant solution in the future. 

1


Hi, 

Someone here mentionned it is possible to use labels in order to backlist an article so it doesn't appear in the search results. 
In our knowledge base we have articles that are still availble and readable but are about a decomissionned feature. Therefore I would like for these not to show up directly on search. 
 

Does anyone know what kind of label I can use for this ? Or any other way to do this ?

0


As in the comment above, I also noticed as if the logic has changed. Like, labels for instance, don't seem to play such a huge role anymore. Whilst the length of the title seems to contribute the most!
Can you maybe double-check and update the scores?

1


We'd like to add an Internal Only section to some of the Articles but, currently, anything in that section of the article will also be indexed. 

 

Would be nice if there was a way of specify that certain text should not be indexed by Zendesk. Failing that, maybe another field on the article form that's not indexed by Zendesk. 

1


Hi all, can someone from Zendesl please confirm what were the last updates in the article?

Was the table below changed?

We are receiving complaints about the search results for articles in the Zendesk Guide, the results recently are not sorted like they used to be.

Sometimes articles without labels are put in front of the articles with labels after we search by the specific words.

 

 

2


Es wäre super, wenn man die Suche auf bestimmte Kategorien einschränken könnte.

0


Hi Rachel,
 
You can add labels to your articles to improve the search relevance. This article will provide the guide on how to implement it: Using labels on your help center articles. I highly recommend check the best practices part as well.
 
For more information about what influences search results in the help center, see About help center end user search.
 
Best,
Paolo | Technical Support Engineer | Zendesk

0


Sign in to leave a comment.

Account details

Sign in to see details

Sign in to see your account details at a glance

Sign in