About Search Carnegie Mellon

Computing Services will now drive its Search Carnegie Mellon service with the award-winning Google search engine, widely considered the industry's best.

Unlike other search engines, Google ranks its results according to what can be thought of as the popularity of the pages. Pages referred to the most are ranked higher in the search results. This system of weighing results, combined with a sophisticated text-matching algorithm, makes Google a search engine that time and time again delivers the results users are looking for.

Google also has the most extensive index of the Carnegie Mellon Web presence. With almost 700,000 cmu.edu pages, Google's database is about three times as large as those of Altavista or Lycos. Through its university search program, Google offers custom search results pages free of charge.

Google's technological innovations have earned the company numerous industry awards and citations, including two Best Internet Innovation and Technical Excellence Award from PC Magazine; Best Search Engine on the Internet from Yahoo! Internet Life; Top Ten Best Cybertech from TIME magazine; and Editor's Pick from CNET.

When University Relations launched the new look and navigation of Carnegie Mellon's Web site in 1999, it received many inquiries about improving the search function. Even though the new navigation strategy makes it easier for visitors to find information in fewer "clicks," some users were still choosing to use the search engine as a means of navigating Carnegie Mellon's site.

University Relations shared this feedback with Computing Services, meeting to discuss the Web users' comments and the search engine's capabilities. Members of University Relations' Student Advisory Council also shared concerns about the search engine with Computing Services.

"As Carnegie Mellon's Web site evolves, it's critical that the strategic planning and programming of 'communications' aspects be closely aligned with the planning and development of the technical functions and infrastructure of the system," said Kyle Fisher Morabito, assistant vice president for University Relations.

"The university's Web is a perfect example of a decentralized and interdisciplinary program. To keep things moving ahead, we need to have a consistent and effective collaboration among University Relations' communications experts and Computing Services' technical experts, as well as with the dozens of people in the departments and colleges who have been given Web-related assignments or positions."

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