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FAQ: gateway

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Can you include a link on the UM Gateway to my site?
Why aren't my most recent changes showing up in search results?

Can you include a link on the UM Gateway to my site?

It is the policy of the University of Michigan Gateway not to include links to sites outside the University of Michigan. However, many sites which are linked from the gateway (including departments, units, and personal pages) have different policies for external links.

Why aren't my most recent changes showing up in search results?

On the gateway servers ( http://www.umich.edu/ ) we have chosen to use the Google University search service:

http://services.google.com/univ_faq.html

It is free, they do not include advertisements, you can create your own account and set up a google University search customized for your web site, and we've found the service to be nothing short of fantastic.

The one real limitation with this service is that you have no control over when or how frequently your site is re-crawled for changes. They index approximately every 25 - 30 days. If this is not often enough for your needs you may wish to look at our swishgate program:

http://www.umich.edu/~umweb/how-to/cgi-scripts/swishgate.html

This is the search software in use, for example, on the ~jobs site:

http://www.umich.edu/~jobs/

which really shows off the degree of customization that is possible. Please let us know if you have any further questions.