Below is a list of best practices compiled by the Web Managers Council that web managers should follow for managing their search engine:

• Choose a good search engine. Acceptable search engines include commercial search engines, search engines that operate as a web service (application service providers), search engines developed by organizations, the free search index available at no cost to federal agencies.
• Practice good usability.
• Place a "search" box or a link to a "search" page on every page of your website. The search box or link should be entitled "Search." Usability studies demonstrate that search boxes are most effective when placed in the same position on all pages (usually within the upper third of a web page).
• Provide a long search box. Create your search box (entry field) at least 35 to 40 characters wide. This will allow users to self-detect more errors when they see what they have entered.
• Provide readable search results. Results should be in an easy-to-read format that shows visitors the term they searched for and highlights the term in the title and description of each search result.
• Ensure comprehensive results. Ensure that your search engine, to the extent possible, can search all of your content that is available to the public. This includes providing access to searchable public databases. A new tool that is available to help you with this is sitemaps. You also will want to know how deeply, that is how many levels down from your entry pages, your search engine indexes content.
• Don't search restricted information. Ensure that sensitive, restricted, or classified information or information that contains personally identifiable information - such as social security numbers - is not included in any web-based file that could be retrieved using a government-owned or commercial search engine.
• Provide search help. Many people are unfamiliar or unskilled at using search technology, so provide help, hints, or tips, and include examples.
• Index content frequently. Index the content of your website at least once a month. Content that is added and updated frequently, such as press releases, should be indexed more frequently; however, content that changes infrequently, such as archived or historical documents, may be indexed less often.
• Have a quick response time. Your search engine should produce results in less than three (3) seconds (on average). Monitor and log search response times to ensure that adequate hardware and software capacity is available to achieve this response time standard.
• Ensure relevant results. Routinely identify the common search terms used on your website, evaluate the relevancy of your search results for those terms, and configure your search services to provide the best ranking possible. You should conduct this review at least quarterly.
• Provide an advanced search function. Although usability research indicates that very few people use "advanced" search features, you should allow visitors to conduct more refined, focused searches to achieve more relevant results. For example, you may want to provide options for searching within certain sets of information, databases, or applications.
• Search beyond your website. Provide options for broadening searches beyond your website. This may include a search of a "parent" organizational.

Labels: Link Building

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