Configuring the SharePoint Federated Search on SharePoint 2010

What is federated Search?

Federated search In this approach, you are enabled to display search results for additional content that is not crawled by your search server. With federation, the query can be performed over the local content index, or it can be forwarded to an external content repository where it is processed by that repository’s search engine. The repository’s search engine then returns the results to the search server. The search server formats and renders the results from the external repository within the same search results page as the results from the search server’s own content index.

Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc806030.aspx

How to setup federated Search in SharePoint 2010?

To setup federated search in SharePoint 2010 go to Central Administration | Search Service Application | Search Administration
In left hand side below Queries and Results click on Federated Locations

By using search federation, users can simultaneously search content in the search index on this server, as well as in other locations, such as database systems, internet search engines and specific scopes on this server.

To add a new location, visit the Online Gallery, download the location and then import it. Alternatively, you can define a new location by clicking on New Location. You may need to specify a proxy – click on Proxy and timeouts to use the crawl proxy specification.

To enable users to search the location in the Search Center, specify the location in the properties in one of the Web Parts enabled for federation.

By default we have following Federated locations :
Internet Search Results | Internet Search Suggestions | Local Search Results | Local People Search Results | Local FAST Search Results

To add a new location, click on new Location and if you want to modify existing locations click Edit

Use this page to edit a federated location. On this page, you can enter general information about the location and specify how search results should be obtained and formatted.

| General Information | Location Information | Display Information | Restrictions and Credentials Information|

In location Information Query Template is set to Live/Bing search. You can edit this to a different search if you like

How to add federated Search to SharePoint Enterprise Search?

To add federated search to SharePoint , you need to edit result.aspx page
Site Actions | Edit Page

Add a web part in Right Zone

Adding Federated Search Results
Select Search under Categories and select Federated Results Web part and save and publish result.aspx page

Now let’s go and search “ Books” and see how Federated Search Results shows up
When I search books, SharePoint Federated Search Results from Bing displays all the results from internet.