Search Engine Help

Q: How can I perform a more advanced search?

A: There are a variety of search methods and special searches. Here is a table explaining how you can use search engines to their fullest potential. Search Query Description   cat dog Search results have the word cat and the word dog in them. Some preference is given to results that also have the phrase cat dog. cat .. dog Use two periods to separate concepts. Like above, but no weight is given to the phrase cat dog. mp3 "take five" Search results have the word mp3 and the phrase take five in them. "john smith" -"bob dole" Search results have the phrase john smith but NOT the phrase bob dole in them. bmx -game Search results have the word bmx but not game. suburl:edu title:university Search results have university in their title and edu in their url. site:www.ibm.com "big blue" Search results are from www.ibm.com and have the phrase big blue in them. url:www.yahoo.com Search result must be nothing or the page http://www.yahoo.com/ title:"the news" -"weather report" Search results have the phrase the news in their title, and do NOT have the phrase weather report anywhere in their content. ip:216.32.120 cars Search results have the ip 216.32.120.* and have the word cars in their content. link:www.yahoo.com Search results link to http://www.yahoo.com/ -link:www.yahoo.com/clubs/ clubs Search results do NOT link to http://www.yahoo.com/clubs/ and have the word clubs in their content. type:pdf nutrition Search results are PDF (Portable Document Format) documents that contain the word nutrition. type:doc Search results are Microsoft Word documents. type:xls Search results are Microsoft Excel documents. type:ppt Search results are Microsoft Power Point documents. type:ps Search results are Postscript documents. type:text Search results are plain text documents. filetype:pdf Search results are PDF documents.   Boolean Query Description   Note: boolean operators must be in upper case.   cat AND dog Search results have the word cat AND the word dog in them. cat OR dog Search results have the word cat OR the word dog in them, but preference is given to results that have both words. cat dog OR pig Search results have the two words cat and dog OR search results have the word pig, but preference is given to results that have all three words. This illustrates how the individual words of one operand are all required for that operand to be true. "cat dog" OR pig Search results have the phrase "cat dog" in them OR they have the word pig, but preference is given to results that have both. title:"cat dog" OR pig Search results have the phrase "cat dog" in their title OR they have the word pig, but preference is given to results that have both. cat OR dog OR pig Search results need only have one word, cat or dog or pig, but preference preference is given to results that have the most of the words. cat OR dog AND pig Search results have dog and pig, but they may or may not have cat. Preference is given to results that have all three. To evaluate expressions with more than two operands, as in this case where we have three, you can divide the expression up into sub-expressions that consist of only one operator each. In this case we would have the following two sub-expressions: cat OR dog and dog AND pig. Then, for the original expression to be true, at least one of the sub-expressions that have an OR operator must be true, and, in addition, all of the sub-expressions that have AND operators must be true. Using this logic you can evaluate expressions with more than one boolean operator. cat AND NOT dog Search results have cat but do not have dog. cat AND NOT (dog OR pig) Search results have cat but do not have dog and do not have pig. When evaluating a boolean expression that contains ()'s you can evaluate the sub-expression in the ()'s first. So if a document has dog or it has pig or it has both, then the expression, (dog OR pig) would be true. So you could, in this case, substitute true for that expression to get the following: cat AND NOT (true) = cat AND false = false. Does anyone actually read this far? (cat OR dog) AND NOT (cat AND dog) Search results have cat or dog but not both. left-operand   operator   right-operand This is the general format of a boolean expression. The possible operators are: OR and AND. The operands can themselves be boolean expressions and can be optionally enclosed in parentheses. A NOT operator can optionally preceed the left or the right operand.

Q: What is a "Cached Copy"

A: The search spider behind the search engine takes a snapshot of a web page when it is indexed. What you see when you click on the "Cached copy" is the web page at the time it was indexed. Search engines, such as Google, are not affiliated with the authors of the web pages that are in the "Cache" and are not responsible for their content. If you are a web site owner and would like your web site removed from the cache, please contact the search engine directly.

Q: What is the image I see next to the top search results?

A: Some search engines utilize a service which gives you a preview of the web page you are about to visit. This preview can help you to further identify whether the search result you are seeing is relevant to your query.

Q: What are Priority Results?

A: Premium results are contextual advertisements paid for by advertisers for a given keyword or phrase. So if you search for "Airline Tickets" you will see paid ads that may be of interest to you and are relevant to your interest in travel. The first few results of each page are generally paid results and are clearly identified by the "Priority Result" tag.