This page covers all the tools and controls available to SearchBlox administrators — the people responsible for setting up, managing, and maintaining the search platform for their organization.
As an administrator, you control everything: what gets indexed, who can search what, how results look, and how the system performs
Administrators in SearchBlox can:
- Set up and manage data sources (called "collections") that get indexed for search
- Control who can access the system and what they can see
- Monitor system health and search performance
- Configure AI-powered features like SmartSuggest and SmartFAQs
- Manage users, licenses, and security settings
- Export reports and analyze search trends
| Feature | What it does |
|---|
| Web Admin Console | A browser-based control panel where administrators can manage every part of the SearchBlox platform — no command-line access needed. |
| API Explorer | A built-in tool (powered by Swagger UI) that lets administrators and developers browse, test, and run REST API calls directly from the browser without writing any code. |
| Monitoring | View live system status, including the health of search indexes and overall platform performance, directly from the Admin Console. |
What is indexing?
Indexing is the process of reading and organizing your content so it can be searched. Think of it like building a table of contents for all your data.
| Feature | What it does |
|---|
| Collection Indexing | Index your content on demand (right now), on a schedule (e.g. every night), or one document at a time. This keeps your search results up to date. |
| Crawler Settings | Fine-tune how SearchBlox reads and processes your content — including how it handles logins, proxy servers, HTML structure, and how relevant each piece of content is ranked. |
| Sitemap Indexing | Automatically discover and index pages listed in a website's sitemap file or Robots.txt file, so no pages are missed. |
| Selective HTML Indexing | Choose which parts of a web page to index (e.g. only the main article body, not the header or footer) using standard HTML tags. |
| Selective LastModified Date | Control how SearchBlox determines when a document was last updated — useful for keeping search results fresh and accurate. |
| Data Fields | Add custom labels or metadata to your collections, so search results can include extra information specific to your organization's needs. |
What is a collection?
A collection is a group of content from one source — for example, your company website, a shared drive, or a database. You can have multiple collections and search across all of them at once.
| Feature | What it does |
|---|
| Collections & Featured Results Management | Create, edit, and delete collections from any supported data source. Also manage Featured Results — highlighted results that appear at the top of the search page for specific queries (similar to a sponsored result). |
| Manage Search | Configure how search works for each collection: adjust result relevance, upload custom search page templates, and generate the embed code needed to add search to any website or app. |
| Feature | What it does |
|---|
| Search Security | Control who can search what. Set up authentication (proving who a user is) and authorization (deciding what they can see) using SearchBlox's built-in user system, your company's Active Directory/LDAP, or Okta. |
| Users | Create and manage user accounts with three permission levels: Admin (full control), Manager (content and settings), and Business (reporting and insights). Admins can also reset passwords for any user. |
| Smart Synonyms | Automatically generate synonym lists from your own content, so users who search for one term also find results that use related terms. |
| Feature | What it does |
|---|
| SearchAI Features | Configure the AI endpoints that power intelligent search features. This includes PreText (natural language understanding) and SmartSuggest (intelligent autocomplete). |
| SmartFAQs | Create and manage a library of frequently asked questions that automatically appear when users search for related topics — reducing the need for users to browse multiple pages. |
| Feature | What it does |
|---|
| Look and Feel | Customize how search results are displayed — choose from pre-built templates or build your own. Results can also be returned as raw JSON data for custom integrations. |
| Query Caching | Frequently searched queries are stored temporarily so they load faster the next time someone searches for the same thing. This improves performance without any manual effort. |
| Feature | What it does |
|---|
| Analytics & Reporting | View real-time reports on search activity — daily, weekly, monthly, or custom date ranges. See what people are searching for, which queries return no results, and how often results are clicked. Reports can be downloaded as CSV files for further analysis. |
| Insights & Analysis | Go deeper than raw numbers. Identify which search queries perform well and which don't, find pages that need improvement, and spot trends — all to help you continuously improve the search experience. |
| Feature | What it does |
|---|
| Administration | Manage system-level tasks including: updating your license, importing or exporting system configuration, reverting to a previous configuration, setting up a multi-server cluster for high availability, and configuring Single Sign-On (SSO). |
