Search Engine Syntax

  1. To begin a search, you enter one or more search words, select a search style, and press Enter or click a button. Most search sites offer three basic search styles: Any Words, All Words, and Exact Phrase. The results of a search can be wildly different depending on the style you choose:

    1. Any Words - This search's result lists all the indexed pages that contain any of the search words. For example, a search for Martin Luther King birthdate would return all the pages containing the word "martin" as well as all the pages containing the word "luther," "king" and "birthdate." In other words you'd get pages referring to Steve Martin, Luther Ginsberg, King George III, and who knows whose birthdate. This type of search will often yield an immense number of results. If the search site does a good job of ranking by relevance, however, you may find what you need near the top of the list. An "Any Words" search can be useful when you're unsure of your search words. If you don't know whether the scientific name for a blood-pressume guage is "sphygmomanometer" or "sphygnomanometer," try an "any words" search using both

    2. All Words - This type of search lists all indexed pages that contain every one of the search words, in any order. there's still a possibility of off-topic results. for example, an "All Words" search on Martin Luther King birthdate may return a page with the vital statistics of NBA draft prospect Leon Smith, including his birthdate and the fact that he attended Martin Luther King high school

    3. Exact Phrase - This search lists all indexed pages that contain the exact phrase entered, ignoring punctuation. Sites on the same topic that are described using a different phrase won't appear. However, even this type of search can yield spurious results. Again, using Martin Luther King birthdate, a search might find a page listing an individual's special interests: "Most Admired Person, Dr. Martin Luther King; Birthdate: January 16th."

  2. Most search sites offer more than the three simple search types, either on their main pages or on a page titled Power Search or Advanced Search. Different sites support different features - here is a list of the more common ones:

    1. Boolean Search - In a Boolean search, you create a search criterion using AND, OR, and NOT, grouping your search words with parentheses if necessary. For example, bats NOT baseball or "Independence Day" AND (NOT movie)

      2. Boolean Search Terms

      What You're Looking For What You'll Get The Boolean Equivalent
      Any of the Words Every page that has at least one of the words on it trenton OR restaurant OR italian
      All the Words Every page that has all the specified words on it trenton AND restaurant AND italian
      The Exact Phrase Every page that has all the specified words on it in order "trenton italian restaurant" or (trenton italian restaurant)
      Certain Words Excluded Every page that does not have the specified word trenton AND restaurant AND italian NOT chambersburg

    2. Categories - Many search sites organized their indexed pages into a multilevel directory of categories. You can simply browse the category directory until you find what you want, or browse to a point and then search within the selected category. Yahoo! provides a good example of this approach

    3. Number of Results - Many sites let you specify how many items to display on each page of results. As long as you have a reasonably fast connection, it's wise to choose the maximum. Hot Bot not only allows you to specify the number of results, but also the amount of information displayed for each of them

    4. Search Forms - A increasing number of sites include optional search forms that allow you to fine-tune your searches in many ways. You may be able to indicate the desired language, restrict the search to sites withing a particular domain, search within page titles only, or view only sites updated within a certain date range. Google Advanced Search demonstrates many of these capabilities

  3. Some additional search tips:

    1. For some well-defined topics, you can skip the search engine. Just guess the URL and enter it in the address bar. For example www.cocacola.com or www.socialsecurity.gov
    2. Learn one or two search engine's syntax well. Read the FAQ's and help screens for tips on how to achieve the best results
    3. Use as many relevant words as you can. For example, try entering "Sony Mavica reviews" instead of just "Sony Mavica
    4. Put quotation marks around a search phrase often works magic. for example, if you include quotation marks when you search for the historian "Studs Terkel," you will avoid getting listings for cufflinks or building materials
    5. If you want links that relate to a particular time, include the date or year in quotation marks For example, "Olympics and 2000"
    6. Give yourself a head start by searching within a specific category. For example "Recipes"
    7. Don't click links in the results pages, Instead, right-click the links and choose "Open in a New Window," or drag the links to a second browser window
    8. Avoid computer-related terms like file, folder, disk, or memory, unless you intend the computer-related meaning
    9. Check your spelling!
    10. Use lower case in your searches. This makes a difference in some search engines and not in others, but it is a good general rule
    11. Put the most unique word first. Searching for "restaurants italian trenton" will typically take much longer than searching for "trenton italian restaurants."
    12. Use truncation or a wild card symbol (usually a ? to represent one character or a * to represent any number of characters) to retrieve variants of a word. For example: educat* retrieves educate, educated, education, educator, etc.
    13. Tutorials on using several of the major search engines as well as current information and updates on them can be found on www.searchenginewatch.com. Comparisons of search engines' syntax as well as of their coverage, speed, etc.) can be found at Search Engine Showdown

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