Creating an Search & Preview Search Center

The Search & Preview search center exists as its own “site” in SharePoint, and is, therefore, part of a site collection and is usually shown as its own tab in the SharePoint application seen by users. To add an Search & Preview search center, you will also, therefore, use the standard site-creation procedure for SharePoint as outlined below.

To add a new Search Center:

1. Log onto SharePoint as a user that is able to create sites for the collection you wish to modify.

2. Go to the highest-level site for the collection. Usually, this is where you will be when first logging in, and is also usually the leftmost tab in the site navigator. (Note, however, that you might choose to create the search center anywhere, depending on your requirements.)

3. Do one of the following:
o If your site collection has publishing enabled:
Open the Site Actions menu and select Create Site.
o If your site collection does not use publishing:
Open the Site Actions menu and select Create to go to the Create page. From here, click on the Sites and Workspaces link under the Web Pages heading.

4. The standard New SharePoint Site page opens. Fill out the form as described in your SharePoint documentation and according to the needs of your solution. Pay special attention to the following points as you fill out the form (see also the figure below):
 URL Name: We recommend that you set this to “Search & PreviewSearch”, which is the default target setting for the Search & Preview Search Box. (Note, however, that you can also change the target for the Search Box at any site level, in which case you must set this to match the target set for the appropriate Search Box; see also “Configuring the General Search Box Settings”.)
 Template Selection: Select one of the Search & Preview templates, which are listed on the Enterprise tab. Choose “Search & PreviewSearch Center with Publishing” if your site uses publishing. Choose “Search & Preview Search Center” if your site does not use publishing.

5. Fill out all of the other fields as is appropriate for your solution and then click on Create to create the search center.

Figure: Important settings when creating an Search & Preview Search Center

Initially, a Search Center added using the above procedure will include the following files:
• default(default).aspx: a simple search form that targets the default result page. This is the first page that users will see if they navigate directly to the search center.
• DefaultResults.aspx: a standard result page (also includes a simple search field and links to pages for user preferences and the advanced search form). This page is targeted by the default search form, default advanced search form, and the Search Box.
• DefaultAdvanced.aspx: an advanced search form that targets the default result page.
• DefaultDetails.aspx: a default page for viewing extra details about an item selected from the default result list.
• People.aspx: a simple form for searching for people. This form targets the PeopleResults.aspx page.
• PeopleResults.aspx: a result page that is designed to show information about people. This page also includes a simple form for submitting a new search; this form targets the PeopleResults.aspx page itself.
• PeopleResultsAdvanced.aspx: a combination advanced search form and result page for searching for people and displaying people results. The form provided here targets the PeopleResultsAdvanced.aspx page itself.