Web Search Cheat Sheet

Here are several search engines that can be an aid to you in navigating the Internet. I have included major portions of each engine's help page to facilitate searching. For more detailed help in using these aids, please visit the engine's home page.

Help for Advanced Queries Only. Not for Simple Queries!

AltaVista: Help for Advanced Query

(To reach the Help page for Simple Queries, click on Simple Query, then Help.)

Advanced Queries use operators and expression syntax to construct queries. The rules for defining words and phrases, capitalization and wildcards are, however, the same as for Simple Queries.

• You must use the binary operators AND, OR, NEAR, and the unary operator NOT to combine words and phrases. The operators can also be written in lower-case: and, or, not, near. Alternatively, you can use the symbols & for AND, | for OR, ! for NOT, and ~ for NEAR.
• If you need to use any of these words as search words in a query, you must place them in quotes.
• You are allowed to use parentheses to group search expressions; in fact it's recommended as less confusing.

Using the binary operators AND, OR, and NEAR, and the unary operator NOT

kayak AND "San Juan Islands"

The operator AND ensures that both are present in the resulting documents. The operator AND binds less tightly than juxtaposition.

"Digital Equipment Corporation" OR DEC

The operator OR ensures that at least one is present in the resulting documents. The operator OR binds less tightly than the operator AND.

Louis NEAR Monier

The operator NEAR ensures that both are within ten words of each other in the resulting documents. The operator NEAR binds less tightly than the operator NOT and associates to the left. This query matches Louis Monier, Louis M. Monier and Monier, Louis.

vegetable AND NOT "brussel sprouts"

The operator NOT is used to exclude words or phrases from a query. The operator NOT binds less tightly than the operator OR . This query is equivalent to vegetable and (not "brussel sprouts"). Do not use vegetable NOT "brussel sprouts"; this query is syntactically illegal.

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The New Yahoo Search Engine

Yahoo! Help Page

The relevance ranking includes the following features:

Implicit AND and OR scoring: Documents matching more keywords will have a higher score than those matching less. Document Type Weighting: Matched words found in categories are weighted higher than those found in sites. Section Weighting: Matched words found in the Title or Keyword section of a document are weighted higher than those found in its Body or Url. Broadness of Category: Extra score is given to matched category higher on the Yahoo tree.

You can use the Yahoo menu system to build a search!

Yahoo! Search Options

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Look for: Search rated and reviewed sites only entire database green light sites only

Green Light Sites are reviewed sites by Magellan editors; they contain no adult material.

Welcome to Magellan!

Tuning your search

If you enter a "-" (minus sign) in front of a search word, Magellan will exclude that word from the documents it returns. If you place "+" (plus sign) in front of a search word, you are asking Magellan to make sure that all documents returned include the word. It will ignore such words as "the," "that," "for," and "in."

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Infoseek

Four Quick Secrets to Better Searching:

1.Capitalize names and titles, such as December and Star Wars.

2.Use double quotation marks or hyphens to group words that are part of a phrase.

3.Put a plus sign (+) in front of words that must be in documents found by the search. Do not put a space between the + and the word.

4.Put a minus sign (-) in front of words that should not appear in any documents found by the search. Do not put a space between the - and the word.

Two More Tricks to Try

1.You can restrict a search to a certain part of Web page. Please see the Field Searches page for details.

Infoseek : Help

2.Narrow down your results by "refining" your query. The Refining a Query explains how.

Infoseek : Refining a Query

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How to Use Excite Search

ADVANCED SEARCH METHODS

Searching for Proper Names

Often you may find yourself needing to look up a proper name such as John Wayne or Apple Computer. To do this, just capitalize the first letters of each word, just like you would normally. Our seach engine will find only pages that contain those terms as a proper name.

Using Boolean Operators

When you want to refine your search, try using the Boolean operators AND, OR, and AND NOT. Excite Search's concept-based search mechanism turns off when you use Boolean operators, so that your search instructions can be followed exactly.

Boolean operators must appear in ALL CAPS and with a space on each side in order to work.

AND Documents found must contain all words joined by the AND operator. For example, to find documents that contain the words "wizard," "oz," and "movie," enter:

wizard AND oz AND movie

OR Documents found must contain at least one of the words joined by OR. For example, to find documents that contain the word "cat" or the word "kitten," enter:

cat OR kitten

AND NOT Documents found cannot contain the word that follows the term "AND NOT." For example, to find documents that contain the word "pets" but not the word "dogs," enter:

pets AND NOT dogs

( ) Parentheses are used to group portions of Boolean queries together for more complicated queries. For example, to find documents that contain the word "fruit" and either the word "banana" or the word "apple," enter:

fruit AND (banana OR apple)

Using plus (+) and minus (-) signs

These signs perform the same functions as Boolean operators, so use whichever method you prefer. Excite's concept-based search mechanism turns off when you use these symbols, so that your search instructions can be followed exactly.

When using these options, do not leave any space between the sign and the word.

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Search Tips

If you're entering terms with symbols or numbers (e.g., c++, 7-11, 100 B.C.), you'll probably have less luck than if you choose words (e.g., programming languages, convenience stores, ancient history).

Use the minus (-) symbol to create a "not" search. (Enter "bank -river" to find bank when it appears without river.)

Use a period (.) after a keyword to have an exact match. (Enter "bank." to find bank, but not bankers, banking, etc.)

Use a dollar sign ($) when entering a word fragment. (Enter "gard$" and get garden, gardenias, etc.) This is especially helpful when you're stuck on the spelling of a word.

By the way, our rating numbers (e.g., first site on list is "1.000") suggest relevancy to your keyword -- not our opinion of the sites. To get our insight on the Top 5% Sites on the Web, click into "Top 5% Sites" on the main menu.

Use the Lyco's menu system to customize your search. Customize Your Lycos Search

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Operator Example

AND

gardening AND vegetables

pages that include both of the words - e.g. pages containing both gardening and vegetables.

OR

whales OR cetaceans

pages that include either of the words or both - e.g. pages containing whales OR those containing cetaceans OR those containing both whales and cetaceans. (Note: WebCrawler performs OR searching by default so it is not necessary to explicitly specify an OR search.)

NOT

science NOT fiction

pages that include the first word but not the second - e.g. pages containing science but NOT fiction.

NEAR

arthritis NEAR/25 nutrition

pages in which both words appear within 25 words of each other in either direction - e.g. pages containing the words arthritis and nutrition within 25 words of one another. If you do not specify a range, as in the example, budget NEAR deficit, the search will return pages in which the two words are next to each other (in either order).

ADJ

global ADJ warming

pages in which the two words appear next to each other in that order - e.g. pages containing global warming.

"..."

"1996 World Series Champions"

pages containing the phrase - e.g. only those documents containing the phrase "1996 World Series Champions". For two word phrases such as animal magnetism, "animal magnetism" and animal ADJ magnetism have the same effect.

(...)

Homer NOT (Simpson OR Alaska)

pages containing the first word NOT either of the other two - e.g. pages containing Homer but NOT Homer Simpson or Homer Alaska. Parentheses simplify the creation of complex queries and can be used in combination with any of the search operators on this list.

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