There's a scene that repeats itself at nearly every university: someone types something into the website search, presses enter, and gets a list of results that have nothing to do with what they were looking for. Or worse: zero results.

The marketing team knows it. IT knows it. Admissions suffers every time a candidate calls asking about information they "couldn't find on the website" even though it's been published for three years.

The usual response is to blame the search engine. Replace it with another one. Add an Algolia layer. Invest in a search improvement project.

But the search engine isn't the problem. The problem is what's underneath.

The Fragmentation No One Sees

A typical university doesn't have one website. It has an ecosystem of websites: the institutional site, faculty pages, degree microsites, the research portal, the student intranet, campaign landing pages.

Each piece was built at different times, by different teams, with different technologies. Drupal here, WordPress there, a custom development for the alumni portal.

The result: each search engine only sees its own territory.

When a prospective student searches for "internships at biotech companies," the degree site's search can't see the job listings published on the employability portal. The employability portal's search doesn't know there's a partnership with Roche published on the science faculty's website.

It's not a search technology problem. It's a content architecture problem.

What Your Users Are Really Searching For

Before talking about solutions, we need to understand how different university audiences search. They don't search like librarians. They search like people with specific questions.

The Undecided Prospective Student

They don't type "Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration." They type "careers with good job prospects" or "what can I study if I like numbers but don't want to be an engineer."

With a traditional search engine: Zero results or a list of institutional pages that don't answer their question.

With semantic search over a unified ecosystem: Results that connect the Business Administration degree with employability data, alumni testimonials from consulting firms, and the double degree with Data Science. The search engine understands intent, not just words.

The Parent Worried About the Investment

They search for "financial aid for studying abroad" or "how much does it really cost to study at [university]."

With a traditional search engine: If the scholarships page uses the term "international mobility" instead of "studying abroad," it doesn't appear.

With semantic search: The system connects related concepts. "Abroad" associates with mobility, Erasmus, international agreements. "Financial aid" connects with scholarships, financing, discounts. The parent finds all three relevant pages even though none use their exact words.

The Researcher Seeking Collaboration

They search for "research groups in machine learning applied to health" because they want to know if anyone at the university is working in their area before proposing a joint project.

With a traditional search engine: They find the computer science department page (which doesn't mention health) or nothing.

With semantic search over a unified ecosystem: They find the AI group from the engineering faculty, but also the assisted diagnosis project from the university hospital and the ongoing doctoral thesis on disease prediction. Content living in three different sites, connected for the first time.

The Journalist on Deadline

They search for "climate change expert for interview" because they need an academic source for an article due in two hours.

With a traditional search engine: Generic environmental sciences department page. No names, no contacts, no specific areas of expertise.

With semantic search: Profiles of three researchers with their research focus, recent publications on the topic, and press contact information. The journalist finds their source. The university gains visibility.

Why Common Solutions Don't Work

The Alternative: Unify First, Search Later

What This Means for Your Team

For Marketing

You stop receiving complaints about "information that can't be found." The campaigns you create are discoverable from day one because the search engine already knows they exist and understands what they're about.

For IT

One less system to maintain. No fragile integrations between external search and multiple CMS platforms. No tickets about "the search engine didn't index the new page."

For Admissions

Candidates who arrive at the call having already found the basic information. Conversations that start with "I have questions about X" instead of "I couldn't find anything about your university."

For Communications

News, press releases, and institutional content appear when relevant, not just when someone knows their exact URL.

The Uncomfortable Question

How many times has a candidate abandoned your website because they couldn't find what they were looking for?

You don't have that data. Nobody does, because broken search engines don't register silent frustration.

What you do know is how many CMS instances you have. How many different teams publish content without visibility into the whole. How many times someone on your team has said "that's on the website, but it's hard to find."

The search engine isn't the problem. But it can be the indicator of a bigger problem worth solving.