EPA Public Search

EPA's search engine is Lucidworks Fusion. If you have a problem with search, please contact the EPA search team. Please include your exact query terms, any expected results URLs, and a results screenshot (if possible). 

On this page:

• Quick Guide to Searching at the EPA video
• Search Features
  • Best bets
  • Frequent Questions
  • Advanced search
• Creating Customized Search Boxes on Your Web Area
  • Search forms for Drupal Web CMS Content
    • Searching a single web area
    • Searching multiple web areas
  • Coding forms for metadata search
  • TSSMS-based area search no longer supported (legacy content only)

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Quick Guide to Searching at the EPA video

Here are some tips for getting better results with your searches.

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Search Features

Best Bets

Best Bets specify up to three URLs to display at the top of the search results page for a specific query.

For more information on requesting a Best Bet and for information about improving the relevance ranking of your content, see Improving Relevance Ranking in EPA Search Results.

Frequent Questions

Lucidworks Fusion search has been configured to run the query term against EPA FQs, pulling FQs relevant to the query term into the search results. The FQ results also show in the faceted search in the left sidebar.

• Frequent Questions for Specific EPA Programs/Topics

Advanced Search

The advanced search page is available from the search results page and allows the user to create more complex searches and narrow search results. With advanced search the user can combine the search elements below to improve their search results.

• Word filters: All of these words, This exact phrase, Any of these words, Exclude words by title, keyword, or domain
• Domain filters: in title, in keywords, in url
• File Format: All formats, PDF, HTML
• Relevance or Date

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Creating Customized Search Boxes on Your Web Area

Search forms for WebCMS content

You can create a customized search box that searches specific content in the WebCMS. For example, it is possible to create a search box that will only search a single web area.

Searching a single web area

To create a search box that will search a single web area, copy and paste the following code into a page. Add the value for the Web Area Name to search, and the title to appear in the results.

<form action="https://search.epa.gov/epasearch" method="get">

<div class="form-item form-type-textfield">

<label for="what-look">What are you looking for?</label>

<input class="form-text" id="what-look" name="querytext" size="40" type="text" value="" /> 

<input class="form-submit" type="submit" value="Search" /> 

<input name="typeofsearch" type="hidden" value="area" /> 

<input name="inmeta" type="hidden" value="WebArea=Web Guide or Your web area title exactly as it appears in Drupal" /> 

<input name="areaname" type="hidden" value="Your web area name as you want it to appear in results" />
</form>

Warning: After creating your web area search form, you must publish the page before you can test the search form. This is because unpublished pages are available only via https, and do not transmit referrer information.

Searching multiple web areas

To create a form that searches multiple Web Areas, you need to specify a value of "area" for "typeofsearch", the names of the Web Areas to be searched, the title to appear on the search results, and the text to appear on the search button.

In this example, we are searching Web Guide and Drupal Training. Substitute the exact titles of the Web Areas you want to search, separated by a pipe symbol (|) in the inmeta element.

<form action="https://search.epa.gov/epasearch" method="get">

<div class="form-item form-type-textfield">

<label for="what-look">What are you looking for?</label>

<input class="form-text" id="what-look" name="querytext" size="40" type="text" value="" /> 

</div>

<input class="form-submit" type="submit" value="Search Drupal Training" /> <!-- Edit to specify search button text -->

<input name="typeofsearch" type="hidden" value="area" /> 

     <input name="inmeta" type="hidden" value="WebArea=Web Guide|Drupal Training" />  <!-- Edit to specify the web areas to search -->
     <input name="areaname" type="hidden" value="Drupal Resources" /> <!-- Edit to specify the title in the search results -->
</form>

Metadata search forms

Details about how to code your search form using the full range of metadata fields, see Coding forms for metadata search.

TSSMS-based area search no longer supported (legacy content only)

The implementation of area search is no longer supported. All search forms that search only selected content will be supported using metadata search conventions. TSSMS will no longer be available for filtering. URL and every other metadata field will be available. Everything that you could do with area search, you can do with metadata search. Contact the search team (Search_Team@epa.gov) for assistance migrating from area search to metadata search.