Q. What am I searching?
USGenWeb States, State Special Projects, Counties in States, in some cases Towns in Counties, and USGenWeb Special Projects excluding the Archives and Archives Sub-Projects because they have their own search. We typically do not index state internal business pages such as policies and guidelines, nor non-USGenWeb member sites.

Q. When will the rest of the states be ready to search?
During February, March and April, but it may take until May to have them all done.

Q. If you have everything indexed, do I still need to visit the sites?
Search Us is not meant to be a substitute for visiting the sites. The USGenWeb is not only a warehouse of data, but also of thousands of links to data on other sites. Though we do index the names of links to off-site data, you won't know those links are there unless you visit the sites, or the name of a link turns up in a search result.

Also, though very rare, some sites may have some data in a database that no standard search engine can index. Although Search Us technology is capable of indexing such databases and does so when possible, some might be missed. You may also want to note that no standard search engine is capable of indexing graphic images. If there is a text index to what appears in an image, that index is searchable as well as names of links to images, but the image itself is not searchable.

Albeit Search Us technology allow us to index more USGenWeb pages than any other standard search engine, we feel that all Internet resources such as documents and search engines should be used as starter guides for your further research.

Q. How often is this thing updated?
Once a month. Indexing states takes place throughout a month, and on different days.

Q. Which state has the most data online? The most pages?
We currently do not make statistics available to the public.

Q. Why can't I search all of the states at one time?
We're going to try for that after the individual states are indexed, but do not know if it can be done. Even the major search engines have not been able to index the USGenWeb fully, but we have something on our side that they don't...USGenWeb volunteer members!

Q. I get to many search results, what can I do?
Try to narrow down your search by including more search words, by excluding words, or maybe you can use quotes to search for terms as opposed to individual words. For more search engine search tips see Advanced Search Tips.

Q. What is the "index" link on the search results page for?
Like an index at the back of a book, it's handy for browsing. You may not know the exact spelling of a location or a name, and if a search does not turn up anything, you could browse the index.

Q. What is the "site map" link on the search results page for?
We use them during initial indexing, and for trouble-shooting and diagnostic purposes. Links to site maps are normally turned off. Due to the nature of USGenWeb sites being spread out over many, many servers, we cannot provide researchers useful site maps.