One of the most common questions we hear from clients is “What file formats can Google Search Appliance (GSA) index?” Since so many people are curious, we decided to share the answer with you in our blog. It goes a little something like this:
The number of file formats GSA can index is incredible. And, if the standard formats aren’t enough for your needs, you can even leverage a content feed or connector to index additional formats.
Here’s how the numbers break down:
| Method | URL Format | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| POST | https://BaseURI/ResourcePath | To add book details in the Record |
| GET | https://BaseURI/ResourcePath?QueryParam=Value | To get Book with author-name |
To see exactly which formats are supported by GSA, click here.
For those of you who are into technical details, here are a few points of interest:
- Text included in graphics isn’t indexed, but the file names and metadata are
- Excel documents can be indexed, as long as they aren’t encrypted
- PDFs are converted to HTML for indexing
- OCR’d PDFs (paper documents scanned through Optical Character Recognition software) can be indexed
It’s important to note that DIY and open source search solutions simply can’t match the magnitude of file formats that Google supports. In fact, we often see companies, who originally jumped to a different solution, struggle to convert a wide variety of file formats found in a typical repository. Google makes this a non-issue. There’s really no better solution for file conversion.
Interested in learning more about GSA for your organization? Let us know.
You can also join Google’s Head of Search, Rob Cocks, and Perficient’s Google Practice Director, Chad Johnson, for an upcoming complimentary webinar in which they will discuss why and how life sciences companies can leverage the GSA to save time, money, and eliminate frustration.
