How to Add Synonyms to SharePoint Term Store Metadata Terms

In SharePoint, the Term Store helps maintain consistent metadata across your sites. But users might search using different words for the same term.

For example, one user might search for “HR” while another might look for “Human Resources.” To bridge this gap, SharePoint allows you to add synonyms (or ‘Other Labels’) to metadata terms, improving searchability and user experience across our organization.

In this article, we’ll see how to add synonyms to Term Store metadata terms.

Steps to Add Synonyms to SharePoint Term Store Terms

Let’s say you have a Term Set named Departments, and it includes a term “Human Resources”. Employees often use “HR” or “People Team” when referring to the same department. To make sure your content is easily discoverable, you want to add “HR” and “People Team” as synonyms for “Human Resources”.

Now, follow the steps below to do this:

1. Open your SharePoint Admin Center. In the left navigation, select Content services > Term store. You’ll now see the Term Store Management Tool.

2. From the left panel, expand the appropriate Group. Under the group, click on the Departments term set. Select the term Human Resources.

3. After selecting the term, the right panel will show the Rename term.

4. Type in the Synonym for the term and click Add. Then click Save.

Test the Synonyms in a SharePoint Library

To verify that synonyms are working:

1. Go to a SharePoint document library where this metadata column is being used.

2. In the metadata field, start typing “HR” or “People Team.”

3. You should see “Human Resources” appear as a suggestion.

This way, you can add Synonyms to SharePoint Term Store Terms.

Additionally, you may find the following interesting tutorials:

• Create a SharePoint Site
• Import Terms into Term Store in SharePoint
• Create a Subsite in SharePoint
• SharePoint List as Knowledge in Copilot Studio
• Create a Custom Site Template In SharePoint Online