# Presentation: 826994

## FirstGov Search

**July 28****th****, 2004****NOAA Webshop**

**Office of Citizen Services and Communications**
**E-Gov Solutions Support**
**1800 F Street, NW**
**Washington, DC 20405**

## Contents

- FirstGov Search Service Offerings
- Enhancements
- How FirstGov Works
- Updating the FirstGov Index
- Expectations
- Contact Information

## FirstGov Search Service Offerings

- The index for only their specific website
- The index for a selected list of websites
- The entire government-wide index of documents

- FirstGov collaborates with Federal agencies and uses its search engine to crawl Federal websites.  The result is a citizen-centric and government-wide index of 15 million documents.
- This index is made available to Federal agency websites, enabling them to provide site search at no cost.
- Agencies can access:

- FirstGov Search affiliates adhere to ICGI standards

## Enhancements from Recent Upgrade

- New Software
- FAST 3.2
- Allows “real-time” indexing
- Search can be updated quickly for important information
- New Business Processes
- The FirstGov search team works closely with agencies to ensure quality results

## How FirstGov Search works

- Govt
- Web

- Crawlers
- (Weekly)

- Search
- Update
- Program

- Search Results

- Search
-    Index

## How Affiliate Search Works – Easy as 1-2-3

**How Affiliate Search Works – Easy as 1-2-3**

- Search queries from affiliate sites are passed to FirstGov Search and results are presented in the affiliate template.

- Citizen Runs a Search on nws.noaa.gov

- Results From NWS Filter Presented on FirstGov.gov

- FirstGov
- Search
- Filter

- Citizen Returns to nws.noaa.gov

**1)**

**2)**

**3)**

## Filtering Options

- Individual Web Site Search
- Will allow any federal web site to offer search from their own specific web site
- Portal Search
- Allows agencies to search a network of sites within the index
- Government-Wide Search
- Displays results from the total index

- All results displayed in an agency’s presentation style

## Updating the FirstGov Index

- Using the Crawler
- The crawler retrieves information directly from your web site(s)
- Do not guarantee 100% coverage
- No ‘custom’ scheduling available
- Search Update Program
- You provide FirstGov a link with your updated content
- FirstGov regularly retrieves your list of content and updates the index
- Useful for web sites with content management systems

## Coming Soon to a Website Near NOAA

- Categorization
- Sort results based on topic
- Easy updates to your header and footer
- Spotlight for popular terms

- Think ‘breadth’ not ‘depth’ – Easier for Users

## Setting Expectations

- To effectively manage resources while providing the citizen with useful information FirstGov maintains editorial control over the search index
- FirstGov does not guarantee that every document on every web site will be in the index
- FirstGov can work with agencies to maximize the results from the FirstGov index

- Think ‘breadth’ not ‘depth’ – Easier for Users

## Questions / Contact Information

- John Murphy
- _[Jr.murphy@gsa.gov](mailto:Jr.murphy@gsa.gov)_
- 202-219-1198
- Erik Arnold_[erik.arnold@gsa.gov](mailto:erik.arnold@gsa.gov)_202.501.9116
- Mary Sue Deffily_[mary.deffily@gsa.gov](mailto:mary.deffily@gsa.gov)_202.219.1372
- Email to FirstGovSearch@gsa.gov