Keywords, Recommended Links, and Go Links

By David McKelvey

Underneath the hood, we use managed keyword lists to guide our search engine to respond with Lewis & Clark specific information whenever appropriate. For example, we can help the engine know that when you type IT alone, you want Information Technology, not the pronoun (which would appear on nearly every page).

These keyword lists are a primary resource for the search dropdown, the recommended links atop search results, and our url-shortened go links (i.e.http://go.lclark.edu/newmedia).

Naturally, to manage these lists we have an admin interface which lets us search, create, update and delete the resources (url destinations) and the keywords associated with them. Each resource can have multiple keywords assigned as well as multiple GO links, which are basically keyphrases.

Until today, we have kept this admin view limited to the few editors across the three campuses that we’ve trained in the associated rules about word choice. As of ten minutes ago, you now have the ability to see and search the resources and keyword lists. Take a peek now:

http://search.lclark.edu/resources

If you see anything that we might have missed in our keywording, please let us know. Make a lot of suggestions and we will consider adding you to the editors list. Thank Matsya Siosal for this update — she asked for the ability to see the GO links.