Archive for September, 2009

No. The license for Google use limits the number of pages we can index and we are prioritising our primary sites.

Yes – contact the Service Desk for further information

Where a page is password protected on the College website, Google will display brief summary information, but will demand a College log in when the result is clicked on.  Google will only index password protected content which is accessible to all College members.  Any content restricted to a smaller subset of College members will not appear in the search index.

It is possible to exclude your page from the College search results if you have a strong reason for doing so. Remember, many users only use Search to find content, so excluding your page from the listing may mean no-one can find it.  If you do want to discuss excluding your page, please contact the Service Desk.

• Follow Imperial’s web standards.  Search engines find it easier to access properly constructed, validated and accessible code.
• Think about your URLs – make sure you include a clear keyword in the page name
• Make sure each page has a clear Heading 1 <h1> which includes a content keyword
• Ensure your page is linked to from other pages (e.g. from other pages within your department site, and perhaps within the Admin and Services A-Z or the A-Z of Departments and Centres)

If your pages are still not being ranked highly for relevant searches, please contact the Service Desk

Search results are sorted by relevancy according to Google algorithms, using text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. For example, Imperial’s Google search ranks pages according to how near each other your search terms appear.

The College search engine is regularly refined and improved.  Please report any inaccurate search results to the Service Desk.

Imperial uses a Google Search Appliance, which is dedicated hardware purchased by the College in order to search content on Imperial’s web servers.  This allows Imperial to offer a search service that is similar to the popular Google search engine whilst tailoring searching and results to College requirements.

Use the Imperial College Directory to search for College staff members.

• Check your spelling – make sure your search terms are spelled correctly
• You can search for a complete phrase by putting double quotes around it e.g. “research assessment exercise”
• To narrow down a search, use more words – Imperial’s Google search ranks pages according to how near each other your search terms appear
• Imperial’s search is not case sensitive