Yale University

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Help Desk
432-9000
785-3200

ITS Office
Yale University
175 Whitney Avenue
P.O. Box 208276
New Haven, CT
06520-8276
USA

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How the Google Search Appliance works

Yale’s local Google Search Appliance uses the same search technology used by Google’s public search engine (www.google.com). The primary difference between using Google.com and using Yale’s local Google search is that our local search includes only Yale and Yale-related sites, and is optimized to provide local Yale directory links and search collections. Our Google Search Appliance also scans Yale sites more frequently than the public Google site, and will typically pick up page changes and new Yale sites faster than the public search engines. Most of the 450,000 Yale public Web pages are re-crawled every 48-72 hours.

Types of files included in the search index

The Yale Google Search Appliance searches and indexes the content of Web pages, but the Google Search Appliance index also includes the contents of Acrobat PDF files, Microsoft Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint files), as well as most kinds of text files on Yale’s Web servers. If you place Microsoft Office documents or PDF files in your Web site, their contents will be searchable the next time the Yale Google Search Appliance “crawls” your Web site.

Searching for images on Yale Web servers

Unlike the public Google.com search service, the Yale Google Search Appliance does not index images like .gif or .jpg graphics files. If you want to use Google’s ability to search for images, you could always use the public Google search engine along with the “site” restriction to search only for images at Yale:

For example: To search for “bulldog” images at Yale, go to the public Google Images site (images.google.com) and type in:

bulldog site:www.yale.edu

What the Google Search Appliance covers in Yale’s Web presence

Search engines find links by following URL patterns. For example, every Yale University site that has a URL starting with “http:www.yale.edu/” is covered by the search pattern “www.yale.edu,” unless the site has specifically excluded search engines or is on our “do not search” lists.

For example, these sites (and all subdirectories and pages within them) are covered within the “www.yale.edu/” search pattern:

  • http://www.yale.edu/art/
  • http://www.yale.edu/branford/
  • http://www.yale.edu/classics/
  • http://www.yale.edu/development/
  • http://www.yale.edu/english

The Yale Google Search Appliance has a large list of URL “patterns” that it regularly visits (or “crawls” in Web search parlance) to produce a master search index. The example list below shows a few of the many dozens of Yale URL patterns programmed into the Google Search Appliance:

  • http://www.yale.edu/
  • http://info.med.yale.edu/
  • http://www.library.yale.edu/
  • http://aida.econ.yale.edu/
  • http://amo.physics.yale.edu/
  • http://artemis.cs.yale.edu/
  • http://atb.csb.yale.edu/

The best way to check that your site is currently in our master search index is to use the Google Search Appliance search form below to search for bits of content or names that are probably unique to your pages, or search for the exact name of one of your Web pages. If you want to make sure that some or all of your Web site is NOT listed in our search index, please see our information on “no search” options. Be sure to check several results pages if you do not see your content at the top of the results listings. Your page may be in the index, but low on the results listing.

Search the master index of Yale University:

If your site doesn’t seem to be covered by the Google Search Appliance, see our page on getting your site into the Yale Google Search Appliance, and contact us to let us know the URL of your Web site.

See our page on how to get your site listed (or not listed) for further information. We also offer advice on optimizing your site for search engine visibility.WS

  

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