KB User's Guide - Topics Tab - Displaying the Meta-Description of a Topic In Search Results

On this page, we describe how to associate a document with a topic, so that when a user selects the topic from the dropdown on the live site, the content of that doc will be displayed above the list of search results.

The option to display a description of a topic or associated content directly in your live site search results is also referred to as a topic "superdoc". This is generally done so that users that search by topic will better understand the context of the topic or get important information right away.

Assigning a Document to Define Your Topic

  1. Create a document that describes exactly what your topic is about. Assign the status of that document to Active and write down the document ID (DocID) number. For more details on document creation, please refer to KB Author Training - Creating a New Document. The availability of the document will be honored, so if it is not available externally, it will not load on the external site when that topic is selected.

    site_access

    All content restrictions, LinkDocs, etc. within the document will also be honored.

    Note: Page headers and footers associated with the document currently will not be displayed when the document is viewed as a topic meta-description. Please move any necessary content contained in page headers or footers to the doc body.

  2. To assign this document to a specific topic, go to the Topics tab in the KB Admin Tools.



  3. For any level topic entry, you will have a DocID field on the right. Enter the DocID there. Click on the Update button to save your changes.

    DocID_Topics

Displaying Meta-Description of Topic ("Superdoc")

Next to the "Search the KB" box is a Topic dropdown box that defaults to All Topics. The topic you select will appear with a check mark next to it. Below that, you will see the Meta-Description of the Topic you selected.

display_meta_descr

If it seems your meta-description page is too lengthy, you may want to apply show/hide toggles or collapsible panels. See the following documents for additional information: 

If you would like to link to subtopics from your topic "superdoc", the LinkTopic custom field can insert a specific topic name in your document in either plain text or as a hyperlink. The latter option will link to search results to all documents under that Topic. Please refer to KB User's Guide - Documents Tab - LinkTopic to learn how to utilize this function in your in your topic "superdoc".