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We are excited to announce the launch of updated product names, logos, and headers within our user interfaces as part of the CivicPlus® Solution Rebranding initiative. These changes mark the first step toward creating a cohesive and seamless user experience across all solutions in our portfolio. As part of this transition, users may notice minor design updates. While the functionality you rely on remains unchanged, we are in the process of updating screenshots and other resources on our Help Centers to reflect the new branding. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to complete these updates.

Site Search Prioritization

  • Updated:

Elastic search takes all our data, cleans it (such as stemming and HTML stripping), and then puts it into an inverted index where content is separated and organized.

 

The search uses 3 fields:

  • Title
  • Keywords
  • _all.
    • The _all field is essentially a very large string made out of an item’s inverted index (such as non-module widget content, documents, and module items).
    • You "hit" on this data based on occurrence and relevancy metrics.
    • It also searches titles and keywords, and if those "hit," it carries more weight (see Boosts) than hitting on the ALL string.

 

Search Result Weights

The only thing that receives a weighted factor (or a boost) in search results are Keywords. The rest of the results are based on the frequency of the search term.

 

If you would like to add a weighted factor to the Title or other additional fields, please read how to Configure Boost Fields Search.

 

The search tool looks at everything in a long string and calculates how many times a term is referenced in content areas, descriptions, and widgets. If a term is also in a title or keywords then it shows higher in the results.

  • Boosts:
    • Title = 0 By Default
    • Keywords = 1.5
  • Decayed modules:
    • Activities
    • Agenda Center
    • AlertCenter
    • Archive
    • Bids
    • Blog
    • Calendar
    • CityPolls
    • CivicAlerts (News Flash)
    • Community Voice
    • MediaCenter
    • Photo Gallery
    • Real Estate Locator

 

Notes:
  • Pages do not decay
  • Elastic Guide for Decay Functions
  • We use an exponential decay
  • We are at:
    • "Scale": "21d"
      • "Offset": "21d"
      • "Decay": 0.9
  • Decays use different dates in the modules
    • Calendar decays on Event Date, Agenda Center on Meeting Date

 

Decay Date

Items in Document Center, Pages, Facilities, Form Center, Forms, Staff Directory, FAQs, and Notify Me do not have a decay date. We believe it would hinder the search results if we said after x amount of time, this expires from showing in results. The reason is that it is quite possible that a document from 2010 is still the most accurate and relevant item that a site user needs. So, the date is not a factor for search results in regard to the modules mentioned earlier.

Feedback About the Article

Let us know what was helpful or not helpful about the article below.

3 comments

Date Votes
  • Michael Tjoelker

    If I search general terms like "bids", "documents", "agendas"/"meetings", "news", "calendar": I would expect the general module frontend pages to come up in search first. 

    It doesn't seem to work this way by default. How would we go about setting that up? Thank you!

    2
  • Michael Volkmar

    When referencing "Tags" above do you mean page meta tags or typical HTML tags (H1, H2, etc.).

    0
  • Clara Siegele
    • Edited

    Hi Michael Volkmar apologies for any confusion, the article has been updated to clarify that Keywords are what boost search rankings and those can be added when creating or editing a page.

    0

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