During a SharePoint Server Search implementation, it is especially important to document the technical design specifications of Search, prior to configuring. By creating a Search Design Specifications document and continiously managing changes in it, the document acts as a good reference for future projects, knowledge transfer, upgrades, migrations, and disaster recovery scenarios.
When I document search specifications, I do it in a Word document and capture detailed information in a similar format to how the actual configuration screens appear. Here are some samples:
Content Sources
Crawl Rules
Crawl Schedules
Metadata Property Mappings
Scopes
