Methods and apparatuses for both public documents and private documents in response to a single search request are disclosed. Public documents are electronic documents that are made available to large groups of people in by the publisher of the document. An example of a public document is a World Wide Web page. Private documents are documents that have restricted access. An example of a private document is a document that generated by members of an organization and is available only to members of the organization. As described in greater detail below, a portal appliance or other device can be used to search both public and authorized private electronic documents in response to a single search request thereby improving the results of the search and/or reducing the number of searches required to find the desired material.