USA.gov Part 2
Search functions to access online government information.
Morning, everyone!
Picking up where we left off last week with USA.gov…browsing topics may not always be the best way for you to find an answer to a question. USA.gov also has a search engine that can be used to search all government websites. Click on the magnifying glass at the top of the home page.
That will bring you to a search page, where you can choose to search all government websites, narrow to image or video formats, or only search for information provided specifically on USA.gov.
To continue the example from last week, let’s try searching for information on tax return status. You can search keywords in the box, or conduct more precise searches with boolean operators. Here are some of my search results:
Looking at the green website addresses, you’ll notice that while the first result is for USA.gov’s tax return status information page, most results are on irs.gov, the website for the Internal Revenue Services. If you click the second link for the “Refunds” IRS page, you’ll be taken to a similar information resource to the USA.gov page we explored last week, but this time it’s through the host agency itself.
The search function of USA.gov is a great method to search widely for online government information, but if you aren’t finding what you’re looking for, it’s still a good idea to try other methods, such as going directly to agency websites or trying various Google searches. Not all government information is easily searchable - I’ll cover some other useful search methods in future newsletters.
At the time this arrives in your inbox, I’ll hopefully be resting up from a long post-conference travel day. But I’ll see you next week with another government information roundup!