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Virtual Search Tips

Quick Tips and Examples

It's easy to search. Just type in a few words or phrases. Try to use discriminating terms that are likely to be found only in the documents you seek. The more words you give, the better results you'll get. Here are some examples:

Search by typing words and phrases.

Pentium computer with 8x CD-ROM for sale Search will find documents containing as many of these words and phrases as possible, ranked so that the documents most relevant to your query are presented first. Don't worry about missing a document because it doesn't have one of the words in your search -- Search returns relevant results even if they don't contain all query terms.

Identify phrases with quotation marks, separate with commas.

Pentium computer with "8x CD-ROM", "for sale" A phrase is entered using double quotation marks, and only matches those words which appear adjacent to each other. Separate multiple phrases or proper names with a comma.

Use UPPER case to indicate exact match.

Steve Jobs, NeXT Search terms in lowercase will match words in any case, otherwise, an exact case match is used. For example, next will find matches for Next, next, and NeXT, whereas a query for NeXT will only match NeXT.

Refining a Search

It's easy to refine a query to get precisely the results you want. Here are some effective techniques to try:

Identify a phrase.

Before: home run records

After: "home run" records

The before query is ambiguous. Is it looking for the home page of songs like "Run, Run, Run" or baseball statistics? Identifying "home run" as a phrase eliminates the ambiguity. This is the most powerful query refinement technique.

Add a discriminating word or a phrase.

Before: "home run" records

After: "home run" records baseball

As before, the before query is ambiguous. Adding baseball makes the query less ambiguous. You'll get more total matches (because the query is broadened with an additional term), but the relevance ranking will be better.

Capitalize when appropriate.

Before: wired digital white house, baby bells, bill gates

After: Wired, Digital, White House, Baby Bells, Bill Gates

These examples, when all lower case, have a variety of possible interpretations. For example, without capitalization, wired could refer to electrical cables and not Wired Magazine. baby bells could refer to the Bells' children on the "Young and the Restless." Capitalization reduces the ambiguity. It is always a good idea to capitalize proper names.

Use a require or reject operator (+,-).

Before: Barney

After: Barney, +Smith -dinosaur

Barney alone is ambiguous. Is it looking for Smith Barney investment information or cartoon dinosaur pages? You can use the reject operator (the "minus" sign) to eliminate the cartoon dinosaur interpretation. Or, you can require that the word "Smith" be in the document. The after version above does both.

Use a field specifier.

Before: Sun workstation

After: Sun workstation, site:sun.com, title:Ultra