Customized Tridion Search Index Handler: Custom vs Standard field for page url? - search

Question

I was playing around with custom Search Indexing Handlers for SDL Tridion 2011 (GA). I got something working, using the very helpful information provided by Arjen, however I am not sure if my execution is the best option.
The requirement is to be able to search for pages in the CMS by url (eg www.example.com/news/index.html). In order to do this I have the created a class using the ISearchIndexingHandler interface (code below). I am indexing the url in the ContentText field of the item, however I am not sure if this would normally contain something else for a page (I think a page only has metadata so this should be OK). The advantage of using this over a custom field is that I can simply type the url in the search box without having to use <url> IN <fieldname> or something like that.
So my question is, is there any reason not to use ContentText for Pages, and is there any advantage in using a custom field? Also bonus marks go to anyone with good ideas on how to handle BluePrinting (if I create a page in a parent publication, I want the local urls also to be indexed in the child publications), and the case where a Structure group path is altered (I guess I can somehow trigger a re-index of child page items from within my indexing handler).
The code:
using System;
using Tridion.ContentManager.Search;
using Tridion.ContentManager.Search.Indexing.Handling;
using Tridion.ContentManager.Search.Indexing.Service;
using Tridion.ContentManager.Search.Indexing;
using Tridion.ContentManager.Search.Fields;
namespace ExampleSearchIndexHandler
{
public class PageUrlHandler : ISearchIndexingHandler
{
public void Configure(SearchIndexingHandlerSettings settings)
{
}
public void ExtractIndexFields(IdentifiableObjectData subjectData, Item item, CoreServiceProxy serviceProxy)
{
PageData data = subjectData as PageData;
if (data != null)
{
PublishLocationInfo info = data.LocationInfo as PublishLocationInfo;
string url = GetUrlPrefix(data) + info.PublishLocationUrl;
item.ContentText = url;
}
}
private string GetUrlPrefix(PageData page)
{
//hardcoded for now, but will be read from publication metadata
return "www.example.com";
}
}
}

Answer 1

You can store the url in the ContextText Property. Thies field is used to index Template content data.
Tridion does not index shared item(s) of child publication.
Indexing is triggered on Item modification(create, update, delete, localize and unlocalize).
Or you can use reindexing tool to reindex ur item. but there is no way to index shared items in child publication.

Answer 2

I don't think you can include the URL prefix in neither your search query as the indexed item. Because shared items are not indexed, you will probably index the Page from the Website Structure layer, which is never published.
When a Structure Group is moved you would have to make an event handler that triggers re-indexing all child pages using a protected method of the TOM.NET API. This method is not part of the public API, so posting the code for that solution would probably declare me a persona non grata with R&D :)
Before you re-index anything you should store the original publish location url of the Structure Group in the TcmEventArgs.ContextVariables property, so you can verify whether or not a re-indexing action is necessary.