[Sigia-l] Outside In

[PAULA THORNTON]

I've noticed some artifacts that point to an industry phenomenon that I'm
looking to confirm.
 
The first artifact came while working with the CDC. As they have a
'distributed managed' site, there is no centralized taxonomy/classification
controls. As a result, their own call center/support people go to Google to
find a specific page to then go back into the site to share information with
inqiries.
 
I was looking for internal search statistics -- when using search on a
corporate site how often does search fail (as opposed to the content being
inappropriate, ineffective). Conducting a seaerch for such statistics,
brings back all sorts of information about improving statistics of getting
people 'to' your site from external engines.
 
As the cost tradeoffs for optimzing search can be rather significant, how
often are external engines (such as Google) being repurposed for 'internal'
site searches (used in place of other 'managed' engines)?
 
[Or if anyone can point me to 'search success/failure' research...]
 
Paula Thornton