
Highlight Search Results
“Solr has a highlighting feature. This means that Solr returns fragment of the documents that match a query in the query response. Solr includes these fragments in a special section of the response that is called the highlighting section. Solr also includes formatting clues that you use to determine how you present these fragments (or snippets)” from documentation.
- Environment: Sitecore 9 update 1, and Solr 6.6.2.
- References: As this is Solr specific feature, we need to refer following assemblies from our project.
- SolrNet.dll
- Sitecore.ContentSearch.dll
- Sitecore.ContentSearch.SolrProvider.dll
- Sitecore.ContentSearch.SolrNetExtension.dll
- Solr Configuration: No configuration is required to enable this feature.
For demo purpose, i have created a book template, and added couple of book items. I have a description field on book template, which is used for highlighting search results.
Highlighter:
To show Highlight search result, created Highlighter content item, and added Highlighter component (Controller Rendering) from the presentation details. (to main placeholder)

Following points, you can observe in the below code,
- Passing search text through query string.
- Using HighlightingParameters to pass field name, on which highlighting should run.
- Passing query and queryoptions to IProviderSearchContext.Query() method.
Basic Layout code: (Basic.cshtml)
Highlighter component – Controller Rendering: (HighlighterController.cs)
View Model (HighlightResult.cs)
View (Index.cshtml)
Result:
Whole source code, with Sitecore items is present at https://github.com/gopigujjula/Sitecore9SolrDemo
Note: this code is only demo purposes
References:
- https://doc.sitecore.net/sitecore_experience_platform/setting_up_and_maintaining/search_and_indexing/using_solr_to_highlight_search_results
- https://chrisperks.co/2018/03/25/sitecore-search-highlighting-with-solr-the-highlights/
Happy Learning 🙂