--- title: Providing smart search on MVC sites related: - https://docs.kentico.com/k11/developing-websites/developing-sites-using-asp-net-mvc/starting-with-mvc-development.md - https://docs.kentico.com/k11/developing-websites/developing-sites-using-asp-net-mvc/starting-with-mvc-development/installing-kentico-integration-packages.md --- > Agent instructions: > **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown. > > - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version. > - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt). Add search features onto your MVC site to allow visitors to search through [pages](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/managing-website-content/working-with-pages.md), [products](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/e-commerce-features/managing-your-store/products.md) or other data. The system provides an index-based search engine (smart search). See the [Setting up search on your website](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/configuring-kentico/setting-up-search-on-your-website.md) chapter to learn more. To set up smart search on your MVC site: 1. [Configure automatic Web farm mode](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/configuring-kentico/optimizing-website-performance/setting-up-web-farms/configuring-web-farm-servers.md#configuring-web-farms-automatically)  in Kentico. 2. [Enable smart search indexing](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/configuring-kentico/setting-up-search-on-your-website/enabling-search-indexing.md). 3. Create search indexes – you can use either [Azure Search indexes](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/configuring-kentico/setting-up-search-on-your-website/using-azure-search.md) or [locally stored indexes](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/configuring-kentico/setting-up-search-on-your-website/using-locally-stored-search-indexes.md). Assign the indexes to your site and define their exact content. > **Info:** If you want the system to process search indexing tasks at a regular interval, you need to use the Scheduler Windows service , since the standard scheduler does not run reliably when using a separate MVC application. See [Processing scheduled tasks when developing MVC applications](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/developing-websites/developing-sites-using-asp-net-mvc/developing-mvc-applications/processing-scheduled-tasks-when-developing-mvc-applications.md#example---regularly-processing-search-indexing-tasks-on-mvc-sites) for more information. With the **Web farm** service enabled and the related web farm servers showing the _Healthy_ status, search indexes on MVC applications are updated automatically. When your indexes are ready, you need to create a suitable search interface. The implementation depends on the type of search indexes that you use (Azure Search or locally stored). See the sections below for more information. ## Using Azure Search To build an MVC search interface for [Azure Search](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/configuring-kentico/setting-up-search-on-your-website/using-azure-search.md) indexes: - Interact with your Azure Search indexes using the [Azure Search .NET SDK](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/search/search-howto-dotnet-sdk) (provided via the **Microsoft.Azure.Search** [NuGet package](https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.Azure.Search)). - Create controllers and views according to your search requirements (to collect search input, display search results, provide filters, etc.). For more detailed information, see [Integrating Azure Search into pages](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/configuring-kentico/setting-up-search-on-your-website/using-azure-search/integrating-azure-search-into-pages.md). The example describes how to create a web part for a non-MVC Kentico site, but you can use the same general approach in your MVC application's controllers and views. ## Using locally stored search indexes To build an MVC search interface for [locally stored search indexes](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/configuring-kentico/setting-up-search-on-your-website/using-locally-stored-search-indexes.md): 1. Install the **Kentico.Search** [integration package](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/developing-websites/developing-sites-using-asp-net-mvc/starting-with-mvc-development/installing-kentico-integration-packages.md) into your MVC project. 2. Initialize the **SearchService** from the integration package with the indexes you want to search. 3. Call the service's **Search** method to execute the search. ```csharp ISearchService searchService = new SearchService(); SearchResult searchResult = searchService.Search(new SearchOptions(searchText, searchIndexes) { CultureName = "en-us", CombineWithDefaultCulture = true, PageSize = PAGE_SIZE }); ``` The _Search_ method returns a set of results of the **SearchResult** class. In the search result's **Items** property, you can find the **Fields** and **Data** properties. The _Fields_ property contains fields available for all full-text search result items (such as the title or image). The _Data_ property is of an abstract _BaseInfo_ class. Its run-time type contains all type specific properties. For example: - If the search indexes users, the run-time type of a search result item's _Data_ property is of the _UserInfo_ class. - If the search indexes pages, the run-time type of a search result item's _Data_ property is of the _TreeNode_ class. If you [generated classes for your page types](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/developing-websites/developing-sites-using-asp-net-mvc/developing-mvc-applications/generating-classes-for-kentico-objects.md), the run-time type is of the generated class. - If the search indexes pages representing products, the run-time type of a search result item's _Data_ property is of the _SKUTreeNode_ class. With the _Data_ property, you can access any object-specific property. > **Info:** Currently, the _Kentico.Search_ integration package supports all types of [local search indexes](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/configuring-kentico/setting-up-search-on-your-website/using-locally-stored-search-indexes/creating-local-search-indexes.md) except for [custom indexes](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/configuring-kentico/setting-up-search-on-your-website/using-locally-stored-search-indexes/creating-local-search-indexes/creating-custom-smart-search-indexes.md). ### Example – Providing search on MVC sites The following search example uses an index that indexes pages (_TreeNode_ objects) and products (_SKUTreeNode_ objects). The example does not use pagination when displaying search result items. > **Tip:** **Tip**: To view the full code of a functional example directly in Visual Studio, download the [Kentico MVC solution](https://github.com/Kentico/Mvc) from GitHub and inspect the **LearningKit** project. You can also run the Learning Kit website after connecting the project to a Kentico database. 1. Install the **Kentico.Search** [integrationpackage](https://docs.kentico.com/k11/developing-websites/developing-sites-using-asp-net-mvc/starting-with-mvc-development/installing-kentico-integration-packages.md) into your MVC project. 2. Create a new model for working with search queries and search result items. ```csharp public class SearchResultModel { public string Query { get; set; } public IEnumerable Items { get; set; } } ``` 3. Create a new model for the search result item (_SearchResultItemModel_ in the example). 4. Create a controller with a controller action for displaying the results. ```csharp using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Web.Mvc; using CMS.DataEngine; using Kentico.Search; ``` ```csharp // Adds the smart search indexes that will be used when performing a search and sets item count per page public static readonly string[] searchIndexes = new string[] { "MVCSite.Index" }; private const int PAGE_SIZE = 10; /// /// Constructor. /// Initializes the search service that takes care of performing searches. You can use a dependency injection container to initialize the service. /// public SearchController() { searchService = new SearchService(); } /// /// Performs a search and displays its result. /// /// Query for search. [ValidateInput(false)] public ActionResult SearchIndex(string searchText) { // Displays the search page without any search results if the query is empty if (String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(searchText)) { // Creates a model representing empty search results SearchResultModel emptyModel = new SearchResultModel { Items = new List(), Query = String.Empty }; return View(emptyModel); } // Searches with the smart search through Kentico and gets the search result SearchResult searchResult = searchService.Search(new SearchOptions(searchText, searchIndexes) { CultureName = "en-us", CombineWithDefaultCulture = true, PageSize = PAGE_SIZE }); // Creates a list for search result item models List itemModels = new List(); // Loops through the search result items foreach (SearchResultItem searchResultItem in searchResult.Items) { // Adds data to a view model. You can adjust the logic here to get to the object specific fields itemModels.Add(new SearchResultItemModel(searchResultItem.Fields)); } // Creates a model with the search result items SearchResultModel model = new SearchResultModel { Items = itemModels, Query = searchText }; return View(model); } ``` 5. Provide a search field in one of your views. For example: ```csharp @using (Html.BeginForm("SearchIndex", "Search", FormMethod.Get)) { } ``` 6. Provide a view that displays search result items. ```csharp @model SearchResultModel @if (!Model.Items.Any()) { if (!String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(Model.Query)) {

No results found for "@Model.Query"

} } else {

Results for "@Model.Query"

foreach (SearchResultItemModel item in Model.Items) {
@item.Title @item.Date.ToLongDateString()
} } ``` Your visitors can now search on your website with the created search field. The system displays the results based on the indexes specified in the MVC application.