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Embedding A Search Interface For Morris Federation Sides

About This Document

This document describes how a search box of the Morris Federation’s Teamfinder service can be embedded for all sides which have a web site – and the benefits this can provide to all sides, to the wider morris community and help support the inclusion aims share by the Morris Federation and many sides. Examples are provided of the search interface which is hosted by Wyld Morris and Red Cuthbert Morris.

Embedding Search Example 1: Wyld Morris

If you visit the Morris Community page on the Wyld Morris website you will see a search interface based on the contents of the Morris Federation’s Teamfinder service – which holds information on about 500 members of the Morris Federation.

As shown below the page is aimed at people who may be thinking of joining a Morris side. Encouragement is given to giving first consideration to Wyld Morris but the page acknowledges that potential dancers may have legitimate reasons to consider other sides.  

Visit the page and try the search for yourself.  Might this be a useful service to include on your side’s website?

 

 

Embedding Search Example 2: Red Cuthbert Morris

If you visit Red Cuthbert Morris’s home page you’ll see how this side has given a high profile to this search facility, describing how “If you’re not in/near Bedford (the one in the UK!), this search will help you to find other morris dancers closer to home if you want to book or join a group – just put the name of your city, town or county“.

  

About These Examples

These two examples illustrate a popular use case for people searching for morris sides – sides which are near to their location. However you should note that a wide range of other searches can be carried out such as for dance styles, side name, kit, festivals attended as well as factors which may influence decisions on whether to seek to join a side such as gender and inclusivity issues.

Embedding Search on Your Website

You can add this search facility into your side’s website using a few lines of code:

				
					<script async src="https://cse.google.com/cse.js?cx=ce3d80f93c80ce737">
</script>
<div class="gcse-search"></div>

Note:

  • You should add this code using HTML mode (not a graphical display mode).
  • The code can be added anywhere on your page at the top, in the middle or, as in the Wyld Morris example, near the bottom.
  • Feel free to add relevant context to the search interface.  As visitors to the page may be uncertain what they are searching you can give suggestions such as:
    • Location-based suggestions: “Try searching for ‘sides in Yorkshire’“
    • Dance style suggestions: “Try searching for ‘border morris“

If you use this code we suggest that you let us know (email comms-it@morrisfed.org.uk) so that we can se the different ways in which the interface is being used). 

Benefits

If only 10% of the sides which have a website included this search interface on their website this would provide over 30 additional ways for potential dancers to find a morris side!

From your side’s point of view you can use hosting of the search interface as a positive feature: you could advertise your page as a way to advertise for potential dancers in your area. 

And from a wider perspective it will demonstrate the fact that joining a morris side means that you are part of a wider community; a friendly community.

Questions / Concerns 

You may have questions bout the service, and possibly concerns you’d like addressed before adding the search interface to your website:

  • You’d like to know how the search service works: The service is based on the profile information held on the Teamfinder service which has been indexed by Google. The content can be found from a general Google search and in some cases (such as “Looking for a mixed morris side in Dorset“) relevant results will be found on the first page of the results. However for other queries the search results may not be on the first page of results, and therefore unlikely to be found. The search interface, which uses “Google Programmable Search“, restricts the search to the Teamfinder area of the Morris Federation website, provide a search of the almost 500 side profiles.
  • My side’s information is minimalist! Almost half of the sides have added profile information – which means that for just over 50% of the profiles only contain brief factual information.  We recommend that all sides add rich profile descriptions, including photos, videos and a side hashtag, in your profile
  • Is the service likely to be around for a significant period? I wrote a blog post about the Google Custom Search Engine (as it was then known) in July 2010 – and 14 years later a search of University blogs still works (search for “web”).
  • My side’s web expert has warned me of dangers of adding 3rd party content to our website!  There can be dangers in making use of third party content, especially in using service from smaller companies which be be liable to folding or being taken over. However this is not the case with Google!  

 

Status of this Document

Document published: 9 Jul 2024

Licence for this Document

This document is available with a Creative Commons Sharealike (CC-BY) licence. In brief, this means you can copy and make changes to this document provided you give acknowledgements to the author/publisher. A suggested wording for acknowledgements is:

This document is based on the "Embedding A Search Interface For Morris Federation Sides" document by Brian Kelly, Comms and IT volunteer with the Morris Federation.

#MorrisFedITResources #MFITResources #MFDDT

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