NDSU Search + CMS
NDSU Search is a service separate from CMS. CMS interacts with NDSU Search with the following caveats.
As part of the NDSU template, a search box is included and is configured to attempt to filter out content for your site only vs. all NDSU sites by default. The search service itself doesn't recognize your CMS "site," that is really a directory under www.ndsu.edu, as a site (the site is www.ndsu.edu) so attempt to filter is said loosely.
Further, there is a chicken-and-egg dilemna when it comes to
your site go-live and indexing it in the NDSU Search
service:
If your site isn't live, there is no content available
to crawl and index.
When it goes live, you want it to be in the index
right away. But the crawler must first be configured so that its
next crawl on the following Saturday can include your now-live
content.
In the end, there will be a delay from the time your site goes live to the time your site content is available for search in the NDSU search service. Generally the delay is 7-10 days.
Availability to NDSU search
Any page that is published is accessible to search engines, including NDSU Search, regardless of whether the site is "live."
You should verify that no published content in your site contains information that is confidential or inappropriate. This includes pages with "dummy content," public announcements that are not ready for distribution, or drafts of documents that require some sort of approval by the state or other governing entity.
The easiest way to keep work in progress from the eyes of search indexers is to NOT publish it. Leave work in progress in the editing stage until it is ready for the public.
Another option for avoiding indexing
If it is not possible to leave the page unpublished, you should hide the page or any unpolished page content before publishing it.
Flag pages with "do not search"
- Last updated and No search fields in page properties view.
On occasion, there will be pages that you do not want indexed in a search engine, such as "thank you" receipts to Web forms. The solution below is designed to work well with the NDSU search service, but other search engines may have their own requirements. While this procedure will prevent indexing of your page in most cases, you still should not keep truly confidential information on any Web hosting service.
To set the "do not search" flag,
- Edit the page properties for the page that should not be searchable
- Locate the No search checkbox and verify that it is checked
- Save and publish the page as usual
This will flag the page so that it is not included in the NDSU search. It will also set a "meta tag" to instruct other search engines (like Google) not to index the page but does not guarantee those search engines will obey the rule.
Behavior of "Last updated"
The Last updated field value in Page Properties will be reflected only for the display of the Last updated date in the footer of the page.
The Last updated field value will not be used for purposes of determining the actual last-updated date for search engines. This is because a page should be re-indexed if it is updated, even if you choose to override the in-page last-updated display.