New search engine launched for firstgov.gov
Since the end of last year a new search engine has been powering the U.S. government’s official website. FirstGov.gov signed a $1.8 million contract with Vivisimo and Microsoft’s MSN Search to provide it with greatly expanded search capabilities for FirstGov.gov.
FirstGov.gov’s search previously accessed approximately 8 million federal Web pages. GSA expects the new service to index more than three times that many-over 24 million pages, include results from state, local, tribal, and territorial government websites, as well as all federal sites. It will offer unprecedented access to government information from a single source.
The technology behind the new search capability is based on MSN Search and Vivisimo’s Clusty search engine, which clusters search results in folders, grouping together similar items and making it easier to find information.
