Search across Mailtalk public content - 17/9/10

We have now opened our public archives to search engines. All public information has been made available to search via search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. Previously searching across many public groups was difficult but this will now be possible. We hope that although your group names are searchable via search engines, the additional archive search will improve visibility of your public groups and attract more members to make valuable contributions to your discussions. The search can be accessed via any group homepage (https://www.Mailtalk.ac.uk/yourgroupname) or simply search via your favourite search engine such as Google.

We are asking all group owners to check their list configuration so that if they want their group archives to become searchable or if they do not wish the group archives to be searchable, changes will need to be made to the List Configuration.

To change your List Configuration:

• Go to your group homepage (https://www.Mailtalk.ac.uk/yourgroupname).
• Click on the ‘List Management’ menu, ‘List Configuration’ and ‘List Configuration Wizard’.
• Click on the ‘List Maintenance’ Tab.
• In the ‘Notebook=’ section, change the ‘Access Level’ to either Public or Private.
• Click the ‘Save’ button.

Publishing Mailtalk group archives to services such as Twitter or Facebook is already possible via our RSS feeds. To learn how to do this visit JISCMail's newsletter article for Twitter or Facebook

Search box added to group homepages

You can search all Mailtalk public content from all group homepages (http://www.mailtalk.ac.uk/yourgroupname). The search is located on the right hand side in a box titled 'Search JISCMail’s open content'

New improved Mailtalk website search

Search across the Mailtalk help pages, open content and group names in one box on the Mailtalk homepage (http://www.mailtalk.ac.uk).

Points to note

• Search engines choose what to search and when so we cannot guarantee when the public archives will be available.
• Postings will not be available to search in real time outside of Mailtalk. We will update our sitemap but the search engines will choose when to include this information.
• If your group goes from public to private following the release of search, any messages previously crawled maybe available cached for a period of time on search engines.
• If you are setting your group to become public from private, any previous private messages maybe crawled and become searchable. Please review the content of your groups before making the change and removing content that is not suitable for public consumption. You may want to inform your group subscribers of the change in settings.

Essential upgrade of Firewall/firmware - 6/9/10

On Tuesday 21st September between 7:30am - 10am, there will be an essential upgrade of the Firewall software/firmware at the RAL site where Mailtalk is located. The service will be at risk during this time and may experience some downtime.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused.