Implementing Thesaurus in SharePoint 2013

1. Create a thesaurus file

2. Deploy/Import the Thesaurus file

3. Check the results

1. Create a thesaurus file

- In the Key column, enter the term (single or multiple words) that you want to trigger a synonym for when the term occurs in a query.

- In the Synonym column, enter the synonym (single or multiple words) that you want to add to the query if the term specified in the Key column occurs in a query.

- In the optional Language column, enter the abbreviation for the language for which the synonym should apply.

Example of a thesaurus looks like this:

 Key,Synonym,Language

IE,Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer,IE

UN,United Nations,en

UN,Vereinte Nationen,de

2. Deploy/Import the Thesaurus file

Start the SharePoint 2013 Management Shell.

$searchApp = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication

Import-SPEnterpriseSearchThesaurus -SearchApplication $searchApp -Filename <Path>

<Path> specifies the full UNC path of the .csv file (the thesaurus) to be imported.Universal Naming Convention (UNC) is a way to identify a shared file in a computer without having to specify (or know) the storage device it is on. 

In Windows operating systems, the UNC name format is:

\\servername\sharename\path\filename

3. Check the results

When you search for "IE" you should get results with "IE" and "Internet Explorer"

SharePoint 2013 Thesaurus or Synonyms