{"id":343,"date":"2008-08-28T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-28T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.searchenginegenie.com\/link-building-blog\/best-practices-checklist-for-search-engines\/"},"modified":"2008-08-28T02:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-08-28T06:00:00","slug":"best-practices-checklist-for-search-engines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.searchenginegenie.com\/link-building-blog\/best-practices-checklist-for-search-engines\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Practices Checklist for Search Engines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" class=\"MsoNormal\">Below is a list of best practices compiled by the Web Managers Council that web managers should follow for managing their search engine:<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">  <\/div>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\" type=\"disc\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Choose a good search      engine.<\/strong> 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. <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Practice good      usability. <\/strong><strong><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\"><o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Place a      &#8220;search&#8221; box or a link to a &#8220;search&#8221; page on every      page of your website.<\/strong> The search box or link should be entitled      &#8220;Search.&#8221; 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). <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Provide a long search      box.<\/strong> 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. <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Provide readable      search results.<\/strong> 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. <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Ensure comprehensive      results.<\/strong> 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. <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Don&#8217;t search      restricted information.<\/strong> Ensure that sensitive, restricted, or      classified information or information that contains personally      identifiable information &#8211; such as social security numbers &#8211; is not included      in any web-based file that could be retrieved using a government-owned or      commercial search engine. <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Provide search help.<\/strong>      Many people are unfamiliar or unskilled at using search technology, so      provide help, hints, or tips, and include examples. <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Index content      frequently.<\/strong> 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. <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Have a quick response      time.<\/strong> 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.<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Ensure relevant      results.<\/strong> 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.<\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Provide an advanced      search function.<\/strong> Although usability research indicates that very      few people use &#8220;advanced&#8221; 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. <\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong>Search beyond your      website.<\/strong> Provide options for broadening searches beyond your      website. This may include a search of a &#8220;parent&#8221; organizational.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-link-building"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.searchenginegenie.com\/link-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.searchenginegenie.com\/link-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.searchenginegenie.com\/link-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.searchenginegenie.com\/link-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.searchenginegenie.com\/link-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.searchenginegenie.com\/link-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.searchenginegenie.com\/link-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.searchenginegenie.com\/link-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.searchenginegenie.com\/link-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}