Google Custom Search Engine

In August 2009, the University will switch from Google Syndicated Search for Universities to Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) for its main search functionality. Why is this change occuring? Google Syndicated search is no longer supported by Google and we can no longer make updates to the configuration.

There are some important differences between Google CSE and Google Syndicated Search for Universities:

• Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) is supported by Google. Google Syndicated Search for Universities is no longer supported by Google and is considered an End of Life (EOL) service by Google.
• Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) supports indexing of University sites that are not within the utexas.edu domain. The University has other Web sites not in the utexas.edu domain. KUT (www.kut.org), the Performing Arts Center (www.utpac.org) and HireALonghorn (www.hirealonghorn.org) are just a few examples of UT sites that can now be included in the UT Google Custom Search Engine (CSE). These sites were not allowed to be indexed by Google Syndicated Search for Universities.

In addition to the UT Google Custom Search Engine, numerous other sites on campus have site-specific searches. The University also has an alphabetic index of offices helpful for locating pages on the UT Web. If you have questions about the UT search functionality contact TeamWeb.

How Can I Customize the UT Google CSE to search only my site?

Instructions on how to customize the new UT Google CSE to search only your site will be provided after the new Google CSE is in production.

If you want to limit your search to a particular directory or host within the utexas.edu domain, use Google's inurl operator. For example if you want to search for the phrase "gutenberg bible" only within the hrc.utexas.edu sub-domain, enter inurl:hrc.utexas.edu "gutenberg bible". Similarly, if you want to search for the word scholarships, but only within the student directory on www.utexas.edu, enter inurl:www.utexas.edu/student/ scholarships.