New Search Tool: University Google Search

In February 2004, the University switched from AltaVista to Google's free University search for its main search functionality. The free University Google search indexes pages in the utexas.edu domain and returns results with the relevance users appreciate from Google searches. We think this will be an improvement in the search capability for UT Web sites.

There are some important differences between Google and AltaVista:

• Google uses a slightly different search grammar. For those who are familiar with AltaVista's search grammar you will need to make adjustments. AltaVista uses the OR operator by default when you enter multiple keywords. Google uses the AND operator by default. For example, if you enter the two words gutenberg bible as a search string, AltaVista returns pages that contain the word gutenberg OR the word bible; Google returns pages that contain the word gutenberg AND the word bible.
• Both search engines support phrase searching and the + and - operators similarly. For more information about Google search options see http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html.
• The Google University search only indexes pages in 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 not included in the UT Google search. These sites are not indexed by our current AltaVista search either.
• The free University Google search indexes fewer pages within the utexas.edu domain. This has advantages and disadvantages. While you are more likely to get better search results for common search terms, certain other pages used less frequently or with obscure content may not be returned by the Google search.
• 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.

In addition to the Google University search, 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.