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Noise Words, Synonyms, and Special Terms

You can define words (synonyms, noise words, and special terms) that affect natural language and keyword searches performed in CA SDM. Adding or deleting the following terms has a significant effect on search results that are returned to the user:

Noise Words

Specifies words that do not generally contribute to the search process and can, therefore, be ignored. For example, prepositions such as a, an, the, or, and to are often identified as noise words. Use the Noise Words List page to specify words that the product can ignore in documents and queries without affecting search results.

Special Terms

Specifies a term that you want identified as a single word during the search process, although it can consist of several words or contain special characters. For example, words that have a nonalphanumeric character, such as the forward slash (/) in TCP/IP, the hyphen (-) in dial-up, or the underscore (_) in LOCAL_SERVER can be added as special terms. In your evaluation of which words to define, consider valid words that can be divided during the search process because they have a nonalphanumeric character.

Synonyms

Specifies a word that has the same meaning as another word. You can add synonyms so when a user searches for a particular word, and a corresponding synonym for that word exists in your knowledge base, the information can be found. You can define several synonyms for the same word. The system automatically creates reverse synonyms from the keywords you define. For example, if you define computer as a synonym for the word PC, PC automatically becomes a synonym for the word computer. Use the Synonyms List page to specify keyword/synonym pairs that the product uses interchangeably when parsing documents and queries. These keyword/synonym pairs can improve search results.

Note: After you create, modify, or delete noise words, special terms, synonyms, or parse settings, use the Knowledge Re-Index utility provided with the product to re-index the knowledge base.