Transforming UB’s digital communications.
Site-Wide Search
A local (site-wide) search is a standard UBCMS feature, common on larger or more complex sites.
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Last reviewed: October 23, 2024
Adding Search to Your Site
To host a local site-wide search on your UBCMS website, you will first need a 'Search Results' page. Not all site templates have this page, so it may not have been included when your site was first created.
Does Your Site Have a Search Results Page?
Sites Console showing a Search Results page
In the SItes Console, look in your websites folder (e.g. /content/www/your-site) for a page called 'Search Results' (/content/www/your-site/searchresults).
If your site does not have this page, one can easily be added.
People like to search, but not every site needs one—it all depends on how much content you are providing, and how easy it is for your visitors to find the information they are seeking within your site.
If your site does not have a 'Search Results' page, your Unit Web Leader or Site Manager can request it through by contacting the DCT Help Team.
Our search engtine cannot index secure pages. If you wish to add a search to a password protected area, consider building shared content pages and using a Dynamic List Search.
Set Up Your Site's Search
1- Configure Your Search Results Page
Once your site has a Search Results page, any author can configure it for you.
The page comes with a Search component preinstalled, which is configured in the same way as the standard Search component.
2- Edit Your Site's Header
Once you have a Search Results page, and it is configured, you are ready to adjust the search box in the site's header.
Only a specialist can edit site configuration files.
For assistance, contact the DCT Help Team.
- In the Sites Console, navigate to your site's Site-Wide Configuration folder (for example, /content/www/your-site/config/).
- Select the Header page and click Edit in the Command Menu that appears at the top of the window.
- Select the Search section in the header then click the Configure wrench icon.
- Search results page - Enter the location of your Search Results page;
for example, "/content/www/your-site/searchresults" - Leave the other two fields blank.
- Search results page - Enter the location of your Search Results page;
Header page search settings
Use the Finder tool to enter the correct location of the Search Results page. A bad path can 'break' your site.
3- Activate Your Search
This assumes your website has been launched and all pages you wish to be indexed are activated. If that is not the case, hold off on activating your search until you are ready to launch your website.
- Navigate to your site's Site-Wide Configuration folder (e.g. /content/www/your-site/config/).
- Publish the Header page.
- Navigate to your site's main folder (e.g. /content/www/your-site/).
- Select your search results page (e.g. /content/www/your-site/searchresults).
- Publish your search results page from the COmmand Menu.
Please note, a new, 'soft-launched' site is often hidden from search engines so it does not unexpectedly show up in search returns until it has cleared final accessibility and optimization tests and been formally launched. You may need to This is done in the Properties' Advanced tab under Site Visibility. ('No index' should be 'search engines can index site'.)
See an Example
Search Suggestions and Tips for Users
Example of search box suggestions.
Search Suggestions
The standard UBCMS search box offers 'suggestions' as people type in their search query. These suggestions are based on actual search queries entered by visitors to ALL of our websites that use our custom search appliance.
These suggestions cannot be adjusted, but they can be turned off on a site by site basis. Contact the DCT Help Team if you wish to turn them off.
Here are some additional tips for getting the most out a UBCMS search. They are available as shared content so you can share them with your site visitors.
Pull this content in using a Shared Content Reference from:
/content/shared/university/module-content/ubcms/user-search-tips
Having trouble finding what you are looking for? Want to sculpt a precise search query? Use these tips to build a more focused search.
Background
UB's Google appliance indexes all content on a page, including flash content, and some meta-data in the page <head> area, such as keywords and date fields. Your search will not find content that is not visible to our search engine, including secure pages, Javascripting, forms, and some external embeds. (Read more about Google's search appliance.)
Basic Searching Tips
To search a UBCMS site, just enter a word or phrase in natural langue (e.g. "kendo tournament"). The Google engine will return a list of pages that match your search word(s) as determined by its internal algorithmns.
Normally the search results will just be for pages from the website you are currently visiting. To do a system-wide search, please use our general UB search site: www.buffalo.edu/search .
By default the search results will be listed by 'relevancy'. The pages will be ranked higher depending on how many times they contain your search query, and where on the page your words are contained page (e.g. title and headings rank higher).
Advanced Searching Tips
In a search, users may use the following advanced rules:
Partial Matching
Searches match whole words plus common case or tense variations. Hyphenated versions of the search word are also matched, because hyphens are treated as blank spaces.
e.g. a search for cat will not match "appliCATion".
e.g. a search for print will not match 'printmaking', but will match 'print-making' (hyphenated).
e.g. a search for cat will match "CATs" (plural) and "CAT-lover" (hyphenated).
e.g. a search for found will match "find" (present tense), "finds" (past tense/plural), "founded" (past participle) and "finding" (gerund).
Exact Word or Phrase Matching
Use double quotes "" around a word or group of words to require they be matched as an exact phrase.
e.g. "print" will match "print" but not "prints". (It will still match "print-making" because the hyphen is treated as a blank space.)
e.g. "school of nursing" will match UB's School of Nursing but will not match the nursing school is located on the UB South Campus.
e.g. "victor bull” mascot will match UB's mascot is Victor Bull, but will not match Victor E. Bull is our mascot.
Case
Searches are case insensitive.
e.g. a search for school will match "School" as well as "SCHOOL".
Boolean AND
Searches use Boolean And logic by default; i.e. all words are required. There is no need to include 'and' between search words, nor will that change the search results.
e.g. a search for bus stop is the same as a search for bus AND stop, and would match "the Flint Loop bus stop" and also "the bus does not stop at Flint loop".
Boolean OR
Apply Boolean Or logic by including 'OR' (in caps) between your search words.
e.g. school OR college will return results with either the word "school" or the word "college" or results that have both words.
Boolean NOT
Apply Boolean Not logic by prepending a dash on the front of each word you wish to exclude.
e.g. a search for '-student' would exclude any results that include the word "student".
Complex Queries
Combine the above rules to build more complex search patterns.
e.g. "school of nursing" OR "nursing school" will match "UB's School of Nursing" and will also match "the nursing school is located on UB's South Campus".
You may find it helpful to place parentheses ( ) around groups of words to separate the search logic in your query. Words within the parentheses will be treated as a Boolean AND string.
e.g. (school nursing) NOT south will match "UB's School of Nursing" and also "UB's nursing school' but NOT "the nursing school is located on UB's South Campus".
Additional Considerations & Concerns
Searches can only 'see' published content. (They also cannot see into secure pages, or pages that are completely hidden from navigation.)
For a site that is already live, once you have a search results page and that page is activated, our search engine will begin to index your site. For most sites, this process can take up to 48 hours (up to a day to enter the next indexing queue, and then up to a day for indexing and return of search results).
For a brand new site, to ensure that your search results are not empty when your site first launches (before it is indexed by our search engine), consider launching your site without activating the search results page. Without the search results page, the search box in the header will also not show. Then a day or two later, activate the search results page. Your search will then function normally.
Searches can only 'see' published content. (They also cannot see into secure pages, or pages that are completely hidden from navigation.)
For a site that is already live, once you have a search results page and that page is activated, our search engine will begin to index your site. For most sites, this process can take up to 48 hours (up to a day to enter the next indexing queue, and then up to a day for indexing and return of search results).
For a brand new site, to ensure that your search results are not empty when your site first launches (before it is indexed by our search engine), consider launching your site without activating the search results page. Without the search results page, the search box in the header will also not show. Then a day or two later, activate the search results page. Your search will then function normally.
Please note, you can hide a new, 'soft-launched' site from search engines so it does not unexpectedly show up in search returns until it has cleared final accessibility and optimization tests and been formally launched. This is done in the Properties' Advanced tab under Site Visibility. ('No index' should be 'site will not be indexed by search engines'.)
Changes to existing pages and new pages may also take time to appear in search results, but you should expect to see them by the next day. This process will occur faster if your site is known to our search engine to change frequently (i.e. the more often you change your site content, the sooner changes will be reflected in search results).
Deleted pages will similarly continue to display in search results for some time after the changes are made, although visitors who attempt to click through to the deleted page will land on a 404 error ('no such page'). Again you should expect these changes by the next day, and this process will occur faster if your site is known to our search engine to change frequently.
UB's search engine will not be able to find your site if it is not linked from other UB pages it indexes. This situation is very unusual, as most sites are linked to other UBCMS sites even if the path to them is quite lengthy, but if your site is not being found it may need to be added by special request to the list of start pages for our search crawler. For assistance, Contact the DCT Help Team.
Just like the commercial Google search engine, our local search appliance creates an index of our UBCMS system by periodically crawling through all live UBCMS sites. In essence, it crawls through your site by following the links on your pages, including links embedded in Flash content, and even in associated files like PDF and Word documents. But it cannot log into secure areas or see completely hidden content.
For a page to be indexed it must be accessible by a direct path of links from your home page. The search appliance will not follow links embedded in Javascript code, it cannot submit HTML forms (so for example, your 'thanks' page may be hidden), nor can it log into secure areas. The page should also be linked from a site within its own sub-domain -- our search engine only indexes pages within the same sub-domain (e.g. nursing.buffalo.edu or www.buffalo.edu).
The crawler will find content in external embeds as long as the external embed is just displaying HTML, but if the external embed uses AJAX or JavaScript to pull in that content, it will not be indexed. (Your site must also be linked from other previously published UBCMS sites, otherwise the search engine will not find it to begin with, but only rarely is this not the case.)
Beware if you use any of the following custom features:
- Secure content and even links to secure pages are normally hidden from being indexed. If you want them visible in a search you will need to take extra steps (e.g. see below). Similarly, you cannot set up a local search from within a secure area -- instead, consider using the Dynamic List search.
- Page Properties 'hide in navigation' or 'hide in lists' -- Be careful with these. Depending how your site is constructed, they may hide it from being indexed.
- Shared Content may be missed if it is only accessible through a carousel, slide deck, or list that only reveals some of the content (a random display of several slides from a large collection, for example).
- Shared Content may be missed if any of the parent pages are not published.For example, if you have news stories in a path of abc/news/2023/... and the year folders (e.g. 2023) are NOT published, but all the underlying pages ARE published, the search engine will likely miss this content completely.
- Content that is only accessible through special scripting may also be missed (e.g. external embeds, Javascript, form submissions).
- Page Properties 'No Index' -- This setting intentionally blocks a page from being indexed (see Advanced settings under Site Visibility).
If your site utilizes some of these custom features, you may benefit from setting up a master archive page that reveals all of your site's content. You will need to make this archive page clickable off another page on your site, perhaps in the footer. For example, the News Center provides a "browsable archive" of old news releases in its Media Kit. However, using this as a workaround for secure content would thus make that content public, including to public search engines like Google.
Possible Workaround
The Dynamic List components include a search feature that can run inside secure pages. This path will require several components. > Read more about the Dynamic List Search
If you intentionally wish to block a page from being indexed by our search engine or Google/Yahoo/Bing, etc., adjust your page's Properties' Advanced tab under Site Visibility. ('No index' should be 'site will not be indexed by search engines'.)
Please note, you can hide a new, 'soft-launched' site from search engines so it does not unexpectedly show up in search returns until it has cleard final accessibility and optimization tests and been formally launched.
When someone tries to load a page that does not exist on your site, perhaps after clicking an old bookmark, a 404 page appears in its place. (404 is the name of a particular server error, in this case, indicating that the page was 'not found').
We are able to install a custom 404 page (or other error pages) for an entire virtualhost (e.g. all of mgt.buffalo.edu) by special request. CIT will then place your version of the 404 page where it will be generated automatically whenever one of your visitors tries to load a non-existing page.
You’ll need to provide us with the complete HTML code for your new page, such as by making a page in the UBCMS and then copying and adjusting the HTML source until you are satisfied with what people will see. (These error pages are served by the apache proxy server, rather than the actual UBCMS servers and there is not an automatic connection for the error pages like there is for normal pages.)
In addition to your main search in the header, a second search can be implemented for your forms or policies in a customer service area. To add an additional search, use the Search component.