USER GUIDE
Site Search
Give residents a modern search box that suggests matches as they type, shows results in a popup without leaving the page, and tells you what people are looking for — including what they searched for and did not find.
Before you begin
Site Search is switched on for your site by EvoGov. If typing in your site's search box does not show suggestions yet, contact EvoGov support and ask to have the new site search enabled.
There is nothing to set up beyond that. The search index builds itself from the content you already manage — your pages, news posts, events, departments and groups, FAQs, and the names of documents in your Media Library. (Images are deliberately left out of search — residents are looking for site content and documents, not pictures.) When you publish or edit something, search knows about it right away; when you unpublish or delete something, it disappears from search just as fast. There is no “reindex” button to press and no waiting for a crawler.
The search box itself is part of your website's design — usually a compact box in the site header, and sometimes a large centered box on the home page. If you would like the box added, moved, or restyled, contact EvoGov support. This guide covers the parts you manage day to day: the analytics and the settings.
1 Know what residents see
As a resident types, a dropdown suggests up to eight matching titles from your site — even if they make a small typo. Site content (pages, news, events, departments, FAQs) is listed first, then documents below a divider, so a matching department is never buried under a pile of matching files. They can pick a suggestion to go straight to that page, or press Enter to see full results.
Results open in a large popup on the same page. Site content comes first, then a Documents section below it. Each result shows the title, what kind of content it is (Page, News, Event, Department, FAQ, or Document), a short excerpt with the matched words highlighted, and the address it links to. If nothing matches, the popup says so and suggests checking the spelling.
For certain terms you choose — “jobs”, for example — a pinned Suggested result can appear above everything else, pointing residents to exactly the right page. See Suggested results below.
On a home-page search box, a row of Popular Searches buttons can appear under the box. Clicking one runs that search — more on how that row is built below.
2 See what residents search for
Go to Left menu › Analytics › Search Analytics. Pick a reporting window at the top — the last 7, 30, or 90 days.
You will see:
| Panel | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Total searches | How many searches residents ran in the window. |
| Total autocompletes | How many times the suggestion dropdown was used. This is usually many times higher than searches — that is normal. |
| Popular searches | The top 100 terms, with counts. This is also where the public Popular Searches buttons come from. |
| Searches with no results | What residents looked for and did not find. This is your to-do list: if “dog license” shows up here, residents want a dog license page you have not written yet (or it is titled something they would never type). |
Each list has a Download CSV link so you can open the numbers in a spreadsheet or share them at a staff meeting.
3 Change your search settings
Go to Left menu › Analytics › Search Settings, then click the Search tab at the top of the Settings page. (You need administrator access for this page.)
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Header box placeholder | The gray hint text in the small header search box before anyone types. Default: “Search”. |
| Home page box placeholder | The hint text in the large home-page box. Default: “What are you looking for?”. |
| Show the Popular Searches chip row | Turns the row of popular-search buttons under the home-page box on or off. |
| Number of chips | How many buttons appear in the row (6 works well). |
| Rolling window (days) | How recent the popularity data is. A 30-day window keeps the row seasonal — “snow plowing” rises in winter and fades on its own. |
| Minimum searches for a chip | A term must be searched at least this many times before it can become a button, so a couple of odd searches cannot put themselves on your home page. |
| Suppressed terms | Terms that must never appear as a public button. See below. |
| Pinned chips | Terms you always want shown first, regardless of popularity — handy for a seasonal campaign like a leaf-pickup program. |
| Suggested results | Pinned results that appear first when a resident searches certain words. See the next section. |
Click Save Search Settings when you are done. Suppressed terms and pinned chips save instantly with their own Add and Remove buttons.
4 Point residents to the right page with Suggested results
Sometimes you know exactly where a search should lead. A resident who types “jobs”, “employment”, or “careers” wants your job openings page — not every page that happens to mention the word. A Suggested result handles this: when a search contains one of its trigger words, that result is pinned at the very top of both the suggestion dropdown and the results popup, marked with a “Suggested” badge. The normal search results still appear below it — a suggestion points the way, it never hides anything.
You manage these on the same Settings › Search tab, in the Suggested results card. Each entry has three parts:
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Title | What the pinned result says — for example “Employment Opportunities”. |
| Link | Where it goes. Usually a page on your own site (like /jobs), but a full web address works too — useful if you use an outside service for job applications or bid postings. |
| Trigger words | A comma-separated list of words and phrases that make it appear — for example jobs, employment, careers, hiring. Whole words only: “jobs” triggers it, “jobsite” does not. |
Your site comes with two suggestions already set up: Employment
Opportunities (jobs, employment, careers, and similar) pointing to
/jobs, and Bids & RFPs (bids, RFP, request for
proposal, and similar) pointing to /bids. Edit or remove them freely
— if your organization posts jobs through an outside employment system,
just change the link to that address.
5 Understand the Popular Searches chips
Unlike sites where someone has to hand-pick (and then forget to update) the popular links, your chip row maintains itself. A term earns a spot only when all of these are true:
| Rule | Why |
|---|---|
| It is genuinely popular in the recent window | The row stays current and seasonal with zero upkeep. |
| Searching it actually finds results | A chip never leads to a dead end. |
| It clears the built-in language filter | Offensive terms are never advertised on your home page. |
| It is not on your suppressed list | You have the final say — see below. |
When to suppress a term. Sometimes a story is popular for the wrong reasons — say a news item about a lawsuit is suddenly the most-searched thing on your site. Add the key word to the suppressed list and it will never appear as a public button. Suppression matches phrases, so suppressing a last name also blocks longer searches that contain it.
Chips run a search. Clicking a chip performs that search and opens the results popup — it is not a link to one hand-picked page. That means chips can never go stale or point at a deleted page.
6 Know what is (and is not) stored
Search analytics are deliberately privacy-minimal. For each search, the system stores only the words typed, how many results came back, and the date and time. It does not store who searched: no IP addresses, no browser details, and no visitor identifiers of any kind. Raw search logs are automatically and permanently deleted after 60 days.
That is a good line to share when a records request or a privacy question comes in: your search box does not keep unique information about the people using it.
Next steps
Use the Searches with no results list to guide your next round of content: add or rename pages, write FAQs for common questions, and keep file names in the Media Library descriptive — document titles are searchable, so “2026 Budget Hearing Notice.pdf” will be found and “scan0042.pdf” will not.