After you have fully configured your search applicatoin, set up the data sources, and confirmed a crawl you might get the following message when you attempt to do a search from your web site
"The search request was unable to connect to the Search Service."
There can be a couple of different reasons for this error message, such as ensuring that the right service account is running the Search Windows Service, however there is one quick thing to check that might fix your issue.
- Goto Central Administration
- Application management
- Manage Web Applications
- Select the web application
- Click on Service Connections
- Ensure that the search application you configured is checked in this list.