Search

Search enables you to find and access a wide variety of geographic information within geodata.gov. This geographic information, provided by government, commercial, and noncommercial organizations, includes map images, map services, geographic datasets, spatial solutions, clearinghouses, data plans, and references. You can perform a search by using the Search geodata.gov portlet located on the Home page, or to further define your search criteria, use the Advanced Search Options.

Search geodata.gov

The Search portlet allows you to search and discover metadata. Use the Search portlet to specify the type of content and its geographic context. Use keywords, content type, or content theme criteria to find matching metadata of map services, data, maps, Web services, clearinghouses, applications, or documents published to the geospatial one-stop (GOS) portal.

The primary search components are "What" (a text-only search) and "Where" (a geospatial search) (Figure 1). These two search elements can be used separately or together. See Search Hints at the end of this document. To use the Search Portlet:

1. Define 'What' you would like to search for and 'Where' in the U.S. you would like to search.
2. Once you have defined your search parameters, click the Search button and the page refreshes to display the metadata matching your criteria. See the Search Results help for more information.

   Figure 1: The basic Search Portlet on the Home page

   

3. When you enter a place name in the 'Where' field and then click the Search button, the page refreshes and you are prompted to select from a list of options (see Figure 2).
4. Select the correct option under 'Select a place to view on your map:'. The 'My Geography' map now zooms to the place (Figure 3).

Figure 2: Select the correct match from a list of options

5. Click 'Search'.
6. The metadata matching your criteria is displayed in the Search Results page.

Figure 3: The search option interface after selecting a place

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See the Helpful Hints for What-only Searches for more help with your search.

Advanced Search

If the Search geodat.gov options are too general, use the Advanced Search Options to further define your search.

To use the Advanced Search:

1. From the Home page of geodata.gov, click the plus sign next to ‘Show Advanced Search Options’(see Figure 1), and you are directed to the Search page.
2. The search portlet expands displaying more options for you to further define your search criteria (see Figure 3). Now, you can specify the Time Frame, Content Types, Data Category, Publisher, and sort order of the search results.
3. These search options are shown by foldable menu bars. Click a menu bar to reveal the submenu. Select criteria to define your search. To collapse a submenu, click the menu bar again.
4. When you are finished defining your search criteria, click the Search button.

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Advanced Search Options include:

• Search all of geodata.gov or just the Marketplace
• My Geography
• Time Frame
• Content Types
• Data Category
• Publisher
• Sort results by
• My Searches

Search all of geodata.gov or just the Marketplace

You now have the option to search the entire geodata.gov database or just the Marketplace. The Marketplace lists planned data acquisitions, not existing data, and provides opportunities for finding partners for future data development projects. Read more about the marketplace here. In the Search tab, select the option to search only the Marketplace (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Limit the search to just the Marketplace

My Geography

 You can search for metadata using the geographic extent defined in My Geography. You can define map locations by Place Name, Address, Defining a cross street, Township, BLM District, Forest Service Region, Latitude and longitude, or by merely zooming, panning, or drawing a rectangle to define a location on the map. (See My Geography for details)

To search for metadata by using My Geography:

1. Locate and define your area of interest on the My Geography map following the instructions in My Geography.
2. Select an options from 'Anywhere', 'Overlapping this area' or 'Fully within this area' (Figure 5) .
   'Overlapping this area' is the default setting when a geographic area is defined, and will return more results. To narrow the search, select the 'Fully within this area' option.

Figure 5: Option buttons to limit the search area

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Time Frame

Narrow your search further by defining a Time Frame: Anytime, Time Period or Date Posted (see Figure 3).

Anytime - Selecting the Anytime option provides you with all possible results for your search.

To search by Anytime:

1. Select 'Anytime'.
2. Complete any other search criteria, such as Content Types or Data Category, then click Search.

Time Period - The Time Period option allows you to specify a particular date range to search. The Time Period is based on the metadata records validity. For example, some records may expire; therefore, if you enter a date range for a metadata record that has expired, it will not be returned in your results.

To search by Time Period:

1. Select 'Time Period'.
2. Enter the start date of your search in the From field (Figure 6).
3. Enter the end date of your search in the To field.
4. Complete any other search criteria, then click Search.

   Figure 6. Entering time period values

   

   Dates must be entered in the YYYYMMDD format.

Date Posted - This option allows you to find added/updated metadata documents that have been added, updated, or changed after a given date. Note that the Date Posted refers to the date when the metadata document was last added or updated in geodata.gov; it is not in reference to the actual metadata itself.

To search by Date Posted:

1. Select 'Date Posted'.
2. Enter a date in the After field to indicate that you want to search for data posted after a particular date.
3. Complete any other search criteria, then click Search.

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Content Types

The Content Types search option allows you to define the type of content you want to find, such as Documents, Live Data & Maps, Clearinghouses, etc.

To select the Content Type:

1. Select the Content Type(s) that you want to search for from the Content Types list (Figure 7).
2. Complete any other search criteria, then click Search.

   Hold down the Ctrl key to select more than one option from the list.

   In the Search results page, you also have the opportunity to filter the results by Content Type.

Figure 7. Content Type selection window

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Data Category

The Data Category search option allows you to search for metadata that includes information related to a particular subject or data theme, such as agriculture and farming.

To select a Data Category:

1. Click on a Data Category(s) you want to search for from the Data Category list (Figure 8).
2. Complete any other search criteria, then click Search.

   Figure 8. Data Category selection window

   

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Publisher

The Publisher option allows you to search metadata that is published by a specific organization.

To select a publisher:

1. Type the first few letters of the publisher's name (Figure 9).
2. A list of publisher candidates will appear below the area you type in.
3. Choose a publisher from the list or finish typing the name of a publisher.
4. Complete any other search criteria, then click Search.

Figure 9. Select a Publisher

Sort Results By

'The Sort results by' option allows you to view your search results by:

• Relevance - sorting results by Relevance will return metadata based on their relevance to the search criteria you define in the search portlet (see Figure 3).

  Relevance only applies to the 'What' box in the Search portlet (see Figure 3). Spatial searches are sorted by a spatial 'best fit' algorithm.

• Date - sorting results by Date will return metadata based on the most recently updated metadata record.

The results are listed in descending order (the most recently updated metadata is listed at the top of the results list).

• Title - sorting results by Title will return metadata records that best match the search criteria you define in the 'What' and 'Where' text boxes.
  
• Smallest to Largest Area - sorting results by Smallest to Largest Area will return metadata based on the bounding box of the metadata record.
  
• Largest to Smallest Area - sorting results by Largest to Smallest Area will return metadata based on the bounding box of the metadata record.

To sort your results:

1. Click the Sort results by drop-down menu (Figure 10).
2. Click on an item in the list to select it.
3. Complete any other search criteria, then click Search.

Figure 10. Sort results

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My Searches

When you login to geodata.gov, My Searches becomes available to you and is located on the Home page of the geodata.gov Web site. It allows you to select and view a previously saved search. See the Search Results page for more information on saved searches.

This option is only available to you when you are logged in to the geodata.gov Web site.

The My Searches option overwrites any other search criteria you specify.

To use the My Searches option:

1. In My Searches , click on one of your saved searches to select it.
2. The page refreshes and the saved search you selected is displayed.

   If you are using the Search tools for the first time and are logged in to geodata.gov, you will not have any saved searches. You must save a search before it is visible in the My Searches list.

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Helpful Hints for What-only Searches:

1. Use Multiple Terms to Refine Searches - For example, search for 'land cover' to find documents with both the words 'land' and 'cover' somewhere in the metadata, but not necessarily together. Note that the word 'and' is automatically implied in the search.
2. Phrase Search - Use quotation marks ("") to search for an exact phrase, such as "land cover". For example, if you search for "land cover" (with quotation marks), your search will find metadata documents that contain the phrase "Land Cover" with both words together.
3. Capitalization - Searches on geodata.gov are not case sensitive; therefore, all letters regardless of how you type them will be understood as lower case.
4. Excluding terms - To find metadata records that contain certain words, but excludes others, type "and not" in front of the terms you want to exclude. For example, to find metadata records containing the word "wildfire", but not the word "program", type "wildfire and not program" in the 'What' text box. Your search results will exclude the metadata records that contain the word "program".
   

More Search Hints

The Search consists of a "What" box and a "Where" box. The WHAT box is a text-only search. The WHERE box is a geospatial search. The two search elements can be used together or each one can be used separately. You can put a search term (such as "rivers") in the WHAT box. You can also put a place name in the WHAT box (such as "rivers Florida"). When you use the WHERE box, GOS uses a built-in gazetteer to find the location you entered and restricts the search to metadata records whose bounding boxes fit the spatial search area. You can elect to have GOS restrict the search to features that lay fully within the bounding area or that overlap the bounding area. The "overlapping" search is less restrictive and you should usually try this option first (it is the default option selected when you do a spatial search). You can refine the search by selecting the "Fully within this area" option. The search result might be very different depending on how you perform your search. For example, using WHAT = "Rivers Florida" will return different results than using WHAT = "Rivers", and WHERE = "Florida". Try your searches several ways. In the search results page, you have the option to filter the results by data content type (Figure 11).

Figure 11. Content Type filter in the Search Results page

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The Service Availability icon in the geodata.gov search results indicates the probability that a live map service is up and running and will therefore successfully display in the geodata.gov Map Viewer or other compatible map viewer. The Service Availability icon is analogous to the signal strength indicator on a cell phone. The more blue bars in the icon, the more likely the service is operational. The meaning of the various icon states is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 12. Status Icons and Meanings

Icon	Status	Service Availability Score
	Excellent	76-100
	Good	51-75
	Not Good	26-50
	Bad	0-25
	Unknown	Insufficient data.
	N/A	Information is not available.

The Service Availability currently applies only to Web Mapping Services (WMS) and ArcIMS Map Services. In the future, the service availability of other live services might be determined as well, including Web Feature Services (WFS), and Web Context Services (WCS). Check the link below for updates.

How the Service Availability is Determined

A score is assigned to each live map service in geodata.gov through the Service Status Checker developed by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC). The Service Status Checker performs a series of tests on each live map service on a daily basis and records the results. The results of these tests are used to calculate a score consisting of a seven day running average of each service's reliability, and response time. The calculated score is obtained through a request to the Service Status Checker web service to request each score then display the appropriate icon in the geodata.gov search results.

The context sensitive menus (available by hovering the mouse over the search result icon located to the left of the title and text) display a new menu item named "Service Availability". When this menu is selected, a new browser window will open to display a detailed report from the Service Status Checker on the respective service.

The detailed results of testing for each live map service and further diagnostics can be reviewed at the FGDC Service Status Checker Web site at :
http://registry.gsdi.org/statuschecker/

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