Arizona.edu Search Is Being Upgraded (expected July 2026)
Search on Arizona.edu is moving from Google Custom Search to a new SearchStax-powered experience.
Previously, search results were pulled broadly from anything on an arizona.edu domain. This often led to:
- Duplicate results
- Outdated or low-value pages appearing prominently
- Inconsistent ranking across sites
The new search experience is designed to deliver more relevant, accurate, and useful results.
What’s Improved for Site Visitors
The new search experience:
- Surfaces more relevant results based on content structure, not just keywords
- Reduces duplicate and conflicting pages across the university
- Prioritizes up-to-date and clearly written content
- Supports multiple content types (such as pages, people, news, and events)
This helps users find the right information faster—especially on high-impact journeys like admissions, programs, and faculty discovery.
How the Search Index Is Built
Instead of scanning the entire arizona.edu domain, the new system uses a shared search index that is built and maintained by the University's Digital Marketing Team.
Content is included in this index only if a site opts in.
This allows for:
- More consistent and predictable results
- Better visibility into what content is included
- Higher-quality search across the university
This change affects how content is included and ranked in Arizona.edu search results. It does not modify content on your website.
How Your Site Can Be Included
There are two ways for your content to be added to the search index:
Quickstart Sites (Recommended)
Arizona Sites
Quickstart sites managed by Campus Web Services will automatically be opted in. No action required.
Quickstart = direct indexing → higher-quality results
Sites using Quickstart can connect directly to the search index through built-in functionality.
Once configured, content is indexed automatically.
Benefits of this approach:
- More accurate results using structured content (not just page text)
- Faster updates when content changes
- Better handling of content types (People, News, Events, etc.)
- Cleaner indexing that excludes navigation and layout elements
- Respect for access controls and “noindex” settings
Non-Quickstart Sites (Sitemap Submission)
Sitemap = scraping → basic inclusion
Sites not using Quickstart can submit a sitemap to be included via a scraper.
What this means:
- Content is discovered by crawling pages
- Results are based on visible page content and metadata
Tradeoffs:
- Less precise results (page structure and repeated elements may be included)
- Slower updates when content changes
- Limited understanding of content types
What to Expect
- Only content included in the index will appear in Arizona.edu search
- Clear, well-structured, and up-to-date content is more likely to appear prominently
- Search results will continue to improve as more sites participate and indexing expands