Adding own search verticals is a common task in the Search Configuration in SharePoint. Here I want to share a code sample for achieving this programmatically. I hope, this model can be added to SPMeta2. First of all, Search Verticals are dedicated Search Results Pages and links to them. How to add them manually is described on technet:

• How to add a custom search vertical to your search results page in SharePoint 2013

There is no API in CSOM for that. Luckily, Mikael Svenson found how to get the Search Navigation and contributed to PnP by writing an Extension: web.LoadSearchNavigation. Here is my sample code for adding new Search Verticals programmatically: [source language=“csharp”] NavigationNode searchNav = context.Web.Navigation.GetNodeById(1040); NavigationNodeCollection nodeCollection = searchNav.Children; NavigationNodeCreationInformation everything = new NavigationNodeCreationInformation { Title = “Everyting”, Url = “/search/Pages/results.aspx”, }; NavigationNodeCreationInformation myresults = new NavigationNodeCreationInformation { Title = “My Results”, Url = “/search/Pages/myresults.aspx”, }; nodeCollection.Add(everything); nodeCollection.Add(myresults); context.ExecuteQuery(); [/source]

I think, powershell is the best way to do configurations you have to do once. Adding some links to global (top) navigation is one of them:

asnp microsoft.sharepoint.powershell
$w = get-spweb http://takana
$l = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Navigation.SPNavigationNode("Smells like team spirit", "/pages/teamspirit.aspx")
$w.Navigation.TopNavigationBar.AddAsLast($l)

Feature receiver

The alternative is to create a web scoped feature and provide properties:

public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
    var web = properties.Feature.Parent as SPWeb;
    var prop = properties.Feature.Properties\["MyGlobalLinks"\];
    var links = prop.Value.Split(new\[\] { ";#" },
               StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
    foreach (var item in links)
    {
        var newLink = item.Split(new\[\] { ";" },
                            StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
        var newMenuItem =
                new SPNavigationNode(newLink\[0\], newLink\[1\]);
        web.Navigation.TopNavigationBar.AddAsLast(newMenuItem);
    }
}
```This feature can be prefereably hidden. The properties are passed in onet:

NavBarLink

I found even a third way to add links to global navigation: NavBarLink

If you encounter problems while customizing global site navigation in a custom site definition for SharePoint 2010, you probably can solve it by adding the necessary navbar element in navbars section of the onet.xml:

<NavBar Name="$Resources:core,category\_Top;"
    Separator="&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;"
    Body="&lt;a ID='onettopnavbar#LABEL\_ID#' href='#URL#' accesskey='J'&gt;#LABEL#&lt;/a&gt;"
    ID="1002" />

It solved the problems for me :).

Comments from Wordpress.com

Chilly - Nov 3, 2012

How did you edit the Onet.XML file? What if this is only happening on one site in a whole site colleciton will this help this site as well. Thanks for any help you can give. This problem is bugging me on one of my sites.

If you have a custom site definition and want to have a link to RootWeb, just add NavBarPage to your module:

<Module Name="OrklaRootBlank" Url="" Path="">
  <File Url="default.aspx">
	<NavBarPage Name="$Resources:core,nav\_Home;"
		Url="~site" ID="1002" Position="Start" />
  </File>
</Module>