How Does Search Work?

The basic Site Search process, which you can use from the top of each page, attempts to find pages in the City of Eugene Web site relevant to the search word(s) you type. For details about making a search, see What Should I Type to Search with Text?
When the program finds the word(s) related to content in the site, it lists links to the content location(s) on a Search Results page. Also see What Can I Do with the Search Results?
The program generally gives a higher ranking to pages that are part of the defined Eugene Web site structure, rather than to other content, such as documents displayed in PDF or Microsoft Word format.
In the results list, these symbols indicate pages:
Content destinations with higher rankings appear higher in the results list.
View sample destination reached from a link on the Search Results page

Search with the words rental housing produces (in Feb., 2008) these links at the top of the results list:

Clicking the Rental Housing Code link displays this page:

City staff assign "keywords" to pages, and if your search word(s) matches a page keyword, then the search program finds that page, gives it a high ranking, and displays it in the results list.
The relationship of your search word(s) to factors other than keywords can also give content a higher ranking:
Neighborhood – Some pages are identified with neighborhood associations. If your search word is the name of a neighborhood, the search increases the ranking of a page identified with that neighborhood.

. . . a search with the word Churchill . . .

. . . creates this list . . .
Picture of a search results list with the pointer selecting the link to the Neighbohood Associations Information page.
. . . which links to the Neighborhood Associations page where you can view information about the Churchill Area Neighbors, or click a link to a neighborhood map . . .
Picture of a section of the Neighborhood Association page, with arrows pointing to links to Churchill neighbors info and a map of neighborhood association boundaries.

View a current (Feb., 2008) list of Eugene neighborhood associations

Picture of a list of Eugene neighborhood associations.

Title – When your search word(s) is found in a page or document title
Description – When your search word is included in a description of the page or content. The description is entered by City staff when they create Web content; it generally is not displayed for viewers of the site.

Search also finds organizing folders with groups of related items:

Often these items are documents, but they can also be other destinations in the Web site. Clicking the folder name displays links to the related items. Example

Search with the words rental housing produces (in Feb., 2008) a link to a folder with a name that includes Rental Housing:

When you click the link, links to PDF documents in the folder display:

See the Help topics listed just below for more information about the basic Site Search available on the Eugene Web site:

This topic describes a page where you can further refine your search, and find links to many different search pages:

More Searches – Add Search Criteria, Use Links to Other Eugene Searches