Search is a Marathon; not a Sprint

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)’s mission is to provide Congress, the heads of executive agencies, and the public with timely, fact-based, non-partisan information that can be used to improve government and save taxpayers billions of dollars. They are the Watchdogs of the United States Government.

Like many other Government websites, GAO.gov is not that different from other large government and institutional websites. It was being migrated off an old, outdated, PHP-based website into Drupal 8 and has thousands of legal documents, reports, and testimonies that need to be accessible to Congress, Government agencies, and taxpayers at all times. This pain-point isn’t unique to GAO and other Government websites.

With such a critical mission as this, Search was naturally a top priority when migrating to Drupal 8. GAO engaged with Promet Source and Acquia to participate in Acquia’s beta Solr 7 search project as the solution to their website and search needs.

A typical small-to-medium website may need around 10-20 fields to have good search results. GAO, like other large Government websites often need over 50 fields, other technical customizations, and configuration iterations in order to yield good search results for users.