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As of September 1, 2010, Penn State will no longer support an in-house Google Search Appliance (GSA). A cost/benefit analysis determined that various free tools are available to adequately support the most utilized feature sets of the current GSA, and some offer other features not currently supported. Penn State Web developers are encouraged to begin experimenting with alternatives now, as the standardized search element outlined in University Policy AD54 Web Page Design and Image will still be required on Web pages.
There are several free alternatives available for one- or multiple-site search capabilities. Web developers are strongly encouraged to look at all available methods for providing search capabilities on Web sites, including: Google, Yahoo, Ask, Lucene/Solr, and others. The group that currently hosts the Penn State Google Search Appliance plans to use Google's free Custom Search Engine configuration, since it is very similar in its behavior to the same feature set currently utilized within the Penn State GSA.
The table below provides a list of features supported by the current Google Search Appliance and by a free Custom Google Search.
| Current Feature | Currently Supported | Supported by Google Custom Search |
|---|---|---|
| Site Specific Search | Yes | Yes |
| Custom Search Results | Yes | Yes |
| Exclude Sites | Yes | Yes |
| Copy/Paste Code to Invoke Search | Yes | Yes |
| KeyMatch | Yes | Limited |
| Feeds | Yes | Limited |
| Synonyms | Yes | No |
| Connectors | Yes | No |
| On-demand indexing | No | Yes |
| On-demand Sitemap | No | Yes |
| Refinements | No | Yes |
| Promotions | No | Yes |
| Collaboration | No | Yes |
| Statistics | No | Yes |
| Transliteration | No | Yes |
The easiest way to create a custom search engine is to visit Google's Custom Search Engine page to create a custom search engine. Please note that this requires an account with Google. From there, configure your search engine to include the sites you wish, using the standard edition. You can turn off the ads at a later time.
Once the custom search engine is created, you can control the other features listed above from the Control Panel. In the "Basics" area of the Control Panel, you can select "Do not show ads on results pages" from the Advertising Status preference. On the left side of the page are all the options available to the Control Panel. Here, you can select more sites to include, sites to exclude, on-demand indexing, and other options. For more information, see the Custom Search Engine Documentation.
Inquiries regarding this change may be directed to the Penn State Search Engine Team at search@psu.edu