New Search Capabilities Added to FirstGov Portal
"FirstGov.gov, in concert with private sector partners Vivísimo, Inc., and the Microsoft Corp., has launched the government's most powerful search engine, one that:
Vastly expands the search to include federal, state, local tribal and territorial documents;
Increases the universe of government documents from 8 million to 40 million;
Searches more efficiently and effectively by leveraging the powerful Microsoft MSN search index which returns relevant results through sophisticated algorithms;
Leverages Vivisimo's metasearching technology which is unique in government;
Uses clustering technology to organize thousands of search results into categories to help citizens locate government information;
Gives citizens search results they can trust by providing only official U.S. government information;
Costs taxpayers $1.8 million, about half of current search services, generating savings that can be reinvested into further enhancements;
Allows user to determine the relevancy of an individual result before leaving the search page through the preview function;
Provides enhanced search on kids.gov, espanol.gov and consumeraction.gov;
Creates a more citizen-centric government, fulfilling President Bush's pledge."
Related references:
GSA launches upgraded FirstGov search engine
postings on e-government
