April 2024 Newsletter

New results page design update

We’re getting close!

We are almost through the beta period for our new results page! We are migrating fonts, colors, logos, and link content from your old results page to the new design. We are also resolving the last functional and accessibility issues that have been reported.

Next week, be on the lookout for a separate email from us. We will be requesting that you review your new results page within one week and that you make any necessary changes then. We are aiming to do the full cutover at the end of that review period. Very exciting times!

SEO pro tip

Best practices for your website

Consider these simple SEO tips to improve your visitors’ interactions and your website’s visibility in search engines:

• Use human-friendly URLs, make them as short as possible, and use words that let the user easily recognize the content they’re being directed to:
• Keep your folder names brief - one or two words.
• Have your content management system insert the page title as the file name for the page. If possible, leave out words like “and”, “the”, “in”, etc.
• Keep your page titles brief:
• Short titles are easy to read and understand.
• Short titles are easy to view on mobile since they won’t wrap to multiple lines.

As you prepare your website for our upcoming search filters feature:

• Keep your keywords and other metadata tags brief - three words or fewer.
• When you are writing content for search filters, remember that people will need to be able to scan the list of options in the filter panel. Very long tags will make the filters difficult to use.
• Add longer descriptive text to a description field, such as the meta description, or open graph description
</ul>
[Read more about metadata](https://search.gov/indexing/metadata.html)</br> ## Supporting voter registration - A survey ### Footer link option for hosted results pages The White House has directed all federal agencies to promote vote.gov as part of the [Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/03/07/executive-order-on-promoting-access-to-voting/). Federal agencies are strongly encouraged to add a "Register to vote" link in their website footer, referring people to vote.gov for state registration info. We are considering adding a "Register to vote" footer link system-wide to raise awareness of vote.gov as a trustworthy, accurate government resource for voter registration info. You would be able to delete the link if you do not want it in your search results page footer. Please respond to this one-question survey to help us assess this idea. We would appreciate your feedback.
[Take the survey](https://touchpoints.app.cloud.gov/touchpoints/bfac5461/submit)</br> ## Your site analytics ### Where to find different kinds of data Your site analytics are an important part of your website's performance. We understand this and want to clarify the best way to access your data. What you can see and download from the Admin Center:
• You can access your Analytics section and have access to:
  • Queries – see the queries run on your website
  • Clicks – see what people clicked on from results pages
  • Referrers – see the pages people were on when they ran their queries
  • Monthly Reports - see queries for the month you select
  • 3rd Party Tracking – integrate your other analytics tools with your search results page
  • Analytics Alerts – set up email alerts to find out when people are having trouble locating information on your website
  
  What you can’t do from the Admin Center and need to email us to request:</br>
  • The reports available in the Monthly Reports section can only deliver data for one given month. You can’t run reports of your data for periods longer than 30 days. If you need this type of report with data from a longer period, email us at search@gsa.gov> indicating:
  • Site ID and site handle you need the data from
  • Time range for the report
  • Specific data you are looking for
  • Our team requires approximately 2 weeks to fulfill this type of request. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
  ## Taking action based on your feedback ### System improvements for a better customer experience Many of you have requested support over time to complete some functions related to indexing, user account management, etc., which at this time are only available in our backend. Based on your feedback, we are redoing how we approach these functions to improve your overall experience using our service. The next time one of these functions is requested, we will need two weeks to deliver the change, but following that, we will be able to make that change within a day or two. Some examples include:
  • Certain indexing functions we run for you, such as bulk changes to indexed content
  • Adding or removing a user to/from a large number of sites at once.
  </ul>
  We appreciate your understanding and partnership as we make these improvements for you. ## Release Notes Want to learn about the latest features, fixes, and focuses of the Search team? We post monthly [Release Notes](/preview/gsa/search-gov-website/arantxarecio-patch-1/about/updates/releases/) on our website. [Read the latest notes](/preview/gsa/search-gov-website/arantxarecio-patch-1/about/updates/releases/march-2024.html)