London council improves search with Google

Camden Council is making it easier to find information on its websites and intranet by installing Google search technology.

The north London council has bought two Google Search Appliances to help users of its websites find their way through the increasingly large amount of information it provides.

Ainga Pillai, Camden's corporate applications manager, said: "We were looking for a unified search across all the sites and a better search interface. A better search would simplify the whole process and encourage people to get content through searching rather than through navigation."

While the council's main site had a content management system with its own search engine, this didn't extend to the other satellite sites run by the council. Also, as the council added more content to the site it was becoming harder for users to find the right information by using the website navigation alone.

In March, Camden's website had more than 100,000 unique user visits, racking up one million page impressions. The sites receive around 45,000 search requests per month.

The council started by installing a Search Appliance to take over the search on its websites.

Pillai said: "In terms of getting it installed we had it out of the box and working within 15 minutes." The appliance indexed the council's sites overnight and was then able to return answers on searches.

After being impressed by the appliance's performance, the council is now redesigning its website - making the search a more prominent feature.

The council has also bought another appliance to run the search on its new intranet, which is used by its 6,000 employees, so staff can use one interface to search across PDFs, directories, databases and web pages.

Pillai told silicon.com: "Now we've got it linked up with our Active Directory so we can search for people." He said the council is also trialling the Google Desktop search.