Search Engines

UCAR uses the Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) as its primary search engine. This free service for educational institutions enables us to search all *.ucar.edu Web sites as well as additional domains like nsdl.org and dlese.org and wrap the results in our own interface. You can add the UCAR Google search form to your own websites by following the instructions included on this page.

Legal Note: The Google service has an exclusivity clause which requires that Google be the exclusive provider of Internet search services on any site that uses the Google search form. Any UCAR Web site with its own domain name (e.g. www.cisl.ucar.edu) that uses the Google search form cannot use another Internet search service provider on that site. Please read our discussion of the Google Terms of Use for more details.

The Web Engineering Group maintains the Verity Ultraseek Intranet Search Service for searching internal Web pages since Google is unable to access those. If you have an internal directory you would like to have included in UCAR internal search results, please submit a work request.

Google Search Form

Search all UCAR-related sites

The following Google form. The style attribute in the form tag is optional and simply removes the white space browsers add under a form. To maintain consistency throughout UCAR sites, it is recommended that all three elements: the field, button and advanced link be on one line as you see in the example. They can be included in the header, subnav, below the subnav or wherever is appropriate in your page design. Research has shown that users look for search in the upper right of Web pages. The advanced link should have a small font size.

<form name="google" action="http://www.ucar.edu/search/googleresults.jsp" id="cse-search-box">
 <div id="googlesearch">
   <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="008424664622949020059:afj38jxaljc" />
   <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9" />
   <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="UTF-8" />
   <input type="text" name="q" size="12" />
   <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" />
   <span class="xsmall"><a href="http://www.ucar.edu/ucar/search_advanced.shtml">advanced</a></span>
 </div>
</form>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/coop/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box&lang=en"></script>

Create your own custom Google results page

The form above sends it's results to a search results template on the www.ucar.edu website. If you prefer to keep search results within your own site template, insert the following code into your own search results page and change the form action in the form above to point to your file. Note, the include file directive here is for JSPs.

<div id="searchform" align="right">
    <!-- Insert your search form include file or code here -->     
</div>

<!-- This is Google Custom Search Engine Code written by Google which places search results in div cse-search-results when called
          by the search form included in this page or any other page. -->     
<div id="cse-search-results" align="center"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
    var googleSearchIframeName = "cse-search-results";
    var googleSearchFormName = "cse-search-box";
    var googleSearchFrameWidth = 600;
    var googleSearchDomain = "www.google.com";
    var googleSearchPath = "/cse";
 </script>
 <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/afsonline/show_afs_search.js"></script>

Search a specific UCAR site or directory

On certain pages in your site, you may want to perform a search on a limited set of pages. Examples include documentation, news, and research. Using a hidden input tag with the name "hq" you can submit parameters to Google that are hidden from the user. Then, using the "site:" query modifier in the value of the "hq" tag, you can specify a site domain name and optionally a directory path as well. Please be sure to modify the button name to let users know they are performing a specific search. In the example below, they are searching CISL documentation, so the button reads "Search CISL Docs." If we were searching the entire CISL site, the button would read "Search CISL."

<form name="google" action="http://www.ucar.edu/search/googleresults.jsp" id="cse-search-box">
 <div id="googlesearch">
   <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="008424664622949020059:afj38jxaljc" />
   <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9" />
   <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="UTF-8" />
   <input type="text" name="q" size="12" />
   <input type=hidden name=hq value="site:www.cisl.ucar.edu/docs">
   <input type=submit name=sa value="Search CISL Docs">
   <a href="http://www.ucar.edu/ucar/search_advanced.shtml">advanced</a>
 </div>
</form> 
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/coop/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box&lang=en"></script>

Query modifiers

Google provides a number of query modifiers such as the "site:" modifer above that can be useful for limiting search domains, performing boolean logic, and controlling the user experience. These can be used in several ways:

1. Directly in Google queries, for example: "climate site:www.ucar.edu/news/releases"
2. In a hidden form input tag named "hq" to hide them from the user
3. In a hidden form input tag named "q" if you want users to see the query modifer in the search form of the results page. This gives users additional feedback about the domain of their search and educates them on the use of the modifiers directly within queries.
4. If you want to give users control of modifiers, input tags can be of any type (check box, radio button, list box) as long as the names and values of the input tags are correct.

For additional query modifiers, view the source code of the Google Advanced Search form. Additional modifiers include:

• exact phrase
• without the words
• number of results to display
• language
• file format

We hope you enjoy UCAR's Google search service. Please let us know at webmaster@ucar.edu if you have any feedback or suggestions on how we can further improve UCAR search services or this documentation.