How Do I Find Something?

The City of Santa Barbara is committed to the goal of helping you find the information you are seeking within three (3) clicks of the City Home Page. If you are not finding something, we want to help you.

1)     Did you try the Search?
If you did, try these tips for getting better search results.

a)     Searching for a phrase will return fewer results: pages with all or most of the words are top in the results. The order of the words does not matter. You will also be presented with other phrases that may be relevant to narrow your search.

b)     Pages are sorted by Relevance by default, but you may also choose by Date if you know you are looking for something that was, say, recently posted.

c)      By default, HTML or web pages are displayed. If you know the information you are looking for is the form of an Adobe PDF or a Microsoft Word document (DOC), then click on either of those options in the beige file-type bar above the search results.

d)     Common words and numbers are ignored.

 Click here to try searching the City web site
   (the index is updated nightly)

2)     Did you try the Site Map?
All web site is organized into categories; Government, Residents, Business, and Visitors. These categories are designed to group information into categories that match the needs of our web site visitor: you.

 Click here to go to the Site Map

3)     Still cannot find it? Let us help you.
If you cannot find what you are looking for, please contact the Information Systems Web Help system.

 Click here to Contact Web Help staff