Add content from multiple sites to a single Azure Search index

Sam Medley asked on November 6, 2020 12:45

Hi,

I have an existing Kentico 12 Asp.Net WebForms application that I am mostly replacing with a new MVC application.

I want to implement search for the new application using Azure Search and to build out the search results pages in MVC.

And, I'll be shifting the domain of the existing site to a subdomain and leaving some of the content published on it...only one or two page types and associated pages.

I'd like to have the remaining content from the existing site indexed and available for searching from the MVC search results pages. When one of these items is clicked, the user will be directed to the relevant page on the subdomain.

It sounds like it should be feasible to publish content from both sites into the same Azure Search index. Wondering if someone can confirm that it is and, if there's any tricks or tips to get it working?

Thanks in advance...

azure search

Correct Answer

Brian McKeiver answered on November 6, 2020 16:37

Hi Sam,

It sure is. We have completed this exact thing (federated search with Azure Search). One example is at https://asm.org/. The 4th result for search "water" is an external site result from another domain. Nothing really tricky to getting it working, you just provide the information into the index, and control how the front end renders the result. We ended up hitting the other site's API, caching some of the data for some time in a custom table, and then included the custom table data into the search index through the Azure Search Index we had running already in Xperience. This is only one way to do it though.

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Recent Answers

Brenden Kehren answered on November 6, 2020 16:55

Sam,

To add to Brian's answer, it's an awesome tool. We have a few sites using it. The latest one is using Kentico integrated with SAP and another 3rd party configuration tool to push their search data to Azure. The Kentico documentation has a lot of good info on it. AND for the info you don't get from Kentico, you can find documentation from Microsoft here. Your 3rd party apps won't use any Kentico API's or code.

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