Web Analyzer Test

The Web Analyzer has two main functions: It analyzes search clickthrough logs and hyperlink structures. Both contribute to better ranked search results.

Items that show many clicks in the search clickthrough log are popular and therefore receive better rank scores than less-viewed items. Items that are linked to from many other items are also perceived to be more relevant for the user and therefore receive better rank scores.

The Web Analyzer improves search relevancy by analyzing the link graph and adding anchor texts and a query independent rank boost based on link cardinality to the items in the index. Anchor texts describe the items they refer to and will improve recall and relevancy when a query term matches the anchor text. Items with many links pointing to them will be ranked higher

The Web Analyzer may scale out to many nodes to reduce the total time that is needed for the analysis. This is done by adding dedicated lookup database components and link processing components that are used during the link analysis.

The link processing component receives tasks from the Web Analyzer during link processing. Large scale installations use multiple link processors.

The lookup database component represents a key/value lookup server that retrieves the link information generated by the link processing. The item processing looks up the link information for an item using the URL as key. Large scale installations use multiple lookup database components.

This test helps administrators analyze the workload of each of the link processing components, and gauge how well each of the lookup/anchor database components will be able to provide link information by reporting the number of sites and URIs that are stored in the database.

Target of the test : A FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each link processing component/lookup database configured on the FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint farm.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test period

How often should the test be executed

Host

The host for which the test is to be configured.

Port

Refers to the port used by the specified host. By default, this is 13280.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Contributing links

Indicates the number of contributing links i.e., hyperlinks involved in the link analysis that is performed by this link processing component.

Number

This is a good indicator of the workload of a link processing component. Compare the value of this measure across components to accurately identify the component with the maximum load. If one/more components are analyzing an abnormally large number of links, it could indicate irregularities in load balancing across the link processing components.

Sites in the anchor database

Indicates the number of sites in this anchor database of the FAST Search Server for SharePoint 2010 farm.

Number

A high value is typically desired for this measure. If more number of sites and URIs are available in the lookup database, then it increases the probability of a large number of link information requests being served by the database. 

 

URIs in the anchor database

Indicates the number of URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) in this anchor database of the FAST Search Server for SharePoint 2010 farm.

Number