FirstGov Search July 28th, 2004 NOAA Webshop Office of Citizen Services and Communications E-Gov Solutions Support 1800 F Street, NW Washington, DC 20405

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

FirstGov Search Service Offerings 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: The index for only their specific website The index for a selected list of websites The entire government-wide index of documents 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 Crawlers (Weekly) Search Index Govt Web Search Update Program Search Results

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. FirstGov Search Filter 1) Citizen Runs a Search on nws.noaa.gov 2) Results From NWS Filter Presented on FirstGov.gov 3) Citizen Returns to nws.noaa.gov

All results displayed in an agency’s presentation style 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

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 202-219-1198 Erik Arnold erik.arnold@gsa.gov 202.501.9116 Mary Sue Deffily mary.deffily@gsa.gov 202.219.1372 Email to FirstGovSearch@gsa.gov