Frequently Asked Questions
This Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page has been carefully compiled by analysing the most common enquiries received from public officers. If you are not a public officer, you may visit the SearchSG page for citizens for relevant information.
SearchSG is a Search-as-a-Service tech stack developed with the intent to make government information and services more easily findable and accessible. Our main product offering is a customised search engine that provides advanced search capabilities for government use cases.
Onboarding
Step 1: Email us at enquiry@search.gov.sg to indicate your interest
Step 2: Get your website vendor to add 2 lines of code to your website's HTML. Refer to the steps in the SearchSG Onboarding Guide.
Step 2: Get your website vendor to add 2 lines of code to your website's HTML. Refer to the steps in the SearchSG Onboarding Guide.
Currently, SearchSG is unable to support websites that are on the intranet.
The implementation for SearchSG typically ranges from 3 man-days for default configurations to 2 weeks for extensive customisations. Your website vendor's quote for implementation will also influence the timeline.
Yes, but it is highly encouraged to onboard SearchSG after your website revamp in order to avoid potential compatibility issues and rework.
It is not mandatory, but onboarding to SearchSG is highly encouraged.
Customisations
Yes, refer to this page to see the list of UI components that are customisable.
Yes, you can share with us your use case at enquiry@search.gov.sg. We recommend you to let us understand your objectives, so we can tune your search engine’s algorithm accordingly.
Technology
Currently, IM guidelines prohibit the use of Generative AI for public facing applications. Hence, while SearchSG does have features using Generative AI, the search engine provisioned for public use only employs Extractive AI, which includes natural language processing (NLP) and natural language understanding (NLU) to comprehend user queries holistically.
If you are keen on using Generative AI in our search engine, you can share with us your use case at enquiry@search.gov.sg.
If you are keen on using Generative AI in our search engine, you can share with us your use case at enquiry@search.gov.sg.
Accessibility and Compatibility
Yes. Your website must be accessible from the internet for our web crawler to access for auto indexing.
Currently, SearchSG is unable to support websites that are built by Isomer.
Crawling and Indexing
SearchSG respects your website’s robots.txt, sitemap.xml and allows for additional whitelist/blacklist configurations to support your operation needs. For a clearer illustration, you can refer to this final truth table to understand how SearchSG crawls and index your site.
SearchSG’s web crawler visits and crawls through your website to visit each page at least once per day during the day, this is to ensure that your search results are kept up-to-date.
No, we are unable to access and crawl staging websites. This means when you add SearchSG to your staging site, the search results will reflect the content from your production website.
Cost
Yes, SearchSG’s admin portal is currently free to use.
No, SearchSG offers free onboarding to agencies till further notice. However in future, SearchSG may be chargeable on a cost-recovery basis. Any change in cost will be communicated to onboarded agencies at least 6 months to 1 year in advance.
Contact
For SearchSG-related enquiries, please send us an email at enquiry@search.gov.sg.