<p>SharePoint was designed to serve as a repository for user data (among other things). Thedownside is that it's not always easy to pull a particular piece of data from that vast vault ofinformation.</p><p>Asmore and more data accumulates, a SharePoint search becomes an increasingly complex task.Fortunately, the task can be made simpler by creating scopes that enable custom searches inSharePoint.</p><p>Even if they don't realize it, workers who conduct a SharePoint search are already using searchscopes. SharePoint 2010, in fact, has three search scopes enabled by default: All Sites, This Siteand People.</p><p>Search scopes define which subset of the data will be searched. By default, SharePoint searchesAll Sites, but users can just as easily do a People search or search on a specific SharePoint site.In addition, an administrator has the ability to create custom search scopes that help usersfurther target their searches.Creating a scope for custom searches</p><p><a href="http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-make-SharePoint-search-less-problematic">Keep reading...</a></p>