Introduction

Notes for webmasters

For some years the Computing Service has provided a University-wide web search service that allows users both within the University and elsewhere to search for information on over 900+ more-or-less "official" web sites operated by the University. Additionally, the service can be used to provide facilities for searching within individual sites, avoiding the need for webmasters to set up separate facilities for searching just their own servers. Authenticated users can view search results including pages that are for University-access only.

In November 2010 we introduced a new interface for searching (http://search.cam.ac.uk/). The new interface searches University web servers, the Reporter and Google by default. For logged-in Raven-authenticated users it also searches pages restricted by IP address to clients on the the University Network (which may also be available by Raven authentication from outside), the University Lookup service and the user's home institution and adds extra features: suitably authorised users (institutional editors in Lookup) can now set up their own search filters (a direct replacement for packaged searches) and can add 'Quicklinks' - links returned for searches with specific popular keywords.

The new interface is separate from the 'old' interface, which will be phased out once all the functionality has been add into the new. The webmasters (and web content providers) of web sites operated by the University are the primary audience of these documents, which detail use of both the new features and those features for which you still need to access the old interface.

Comments and questions about the topics covered in these documents can be sent to web-support@ucs.cam.ac.uk

Last updated: January 2012