Can Q&A improve the search experience?

Published 12 September 06 09:06 AM

I was looking at the Q&A site on Windows live today.  There are lots of questions that could be found in TechNet Forum.  For example this question titled "Active directory (AD) and non exchange based EMail addresses" As a component of search, is this something that users would like see be a part of the MSDN and TechNet Sites?    I am curious, if as a extension of search would you benefit from a tool like this.  At MSDN and TechNet, we have strong audiences and I wonder if this is something that would be beneficial.  The guys at Search Engine Watch stated that they believe the "Question and Answer search engines are now the new hot social search thing."  What do you think?

by jandrick

Comments

# Michael Flanakin said on September 12, 2006 1:39 PM:
Personally, I think tech questions are better off on the tech forums/newsgroups. Chances are you'll get more/better answers there. The concept could be integrated into community sites, sure, but I wouldn't ever go to an all-out Q&A board for something I'm building an enterprise on.
# Richard Edwards said on September 12, 2006 5:22 PM:
I'd like search to pick up anything out there on a Q&A board, but I'm not excited about that as a explicit MSDN/Technet offering.  The forums and devwiki (and the blogs to a lesser extent) let you build tighter queries.  See for example Joe Morel's forum search helper app.

It's interesting, though, to think of a Q&A search interface into the current content offerings, where there is user feedback on the relevance of the content to the answer.  Hmmm.

Great to see the refined search!  Thanks!  -red

# Kathleen Green said on September 25, 2006 3:51 PM:
When looking up the definition of 'URL', I click on the first link which says it is the definition, but I get sent to a 'Server Error Page'... the link 'http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/off2000/html/defURL.asp'

This needs to be fixed.

thx,

Kathleen
# » Can Q&A improve the search experience? MSDN Blog Feed said on January 16, 2008 12:56 AM:

PingBack from http://msdn.blogsforu.com/msdn/?p=3810

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