“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