How to improve your search strategy on the WWW

"Operators" is the term for the rules of parameters you can add to keywords when searching the web via a Search Engine such as Yahoo or Excite.

1. Boolean

Employs AND, OR, NEAR and NOT to connect words and phrases [i.e. terms] in the query where:

• AND requires that both terms are present somewhere within the document being sought.

• NEAR requires that one term must be found within a specified number of words.

• OR requires that at least one term is present.

• NOT excludes a term from a query.

When using these operators, remember to capitalize them as shown above.

Example: search AND tutorial

2. Plus / Minus Signs

• Employs [+] before a term to retrieve only the documents containing that term. It is similar to the Boolean AND.

• Employs [-] before a term to exclude that term from the search. It is similar to the Boolean NOT.

• Do not leave a space between the operator and the term that follows.

Query Example: search +tutorial +beginner

3. Quote Marks

• Indicate that the words within the quote marks are to be treated as an exact phrase, or reasonably close to it. It is similar to the Boolean NEAR.

Query Example: "tutorial for beginners"

4. Partial (variable) word/concept searches

• The ability of a search to include the stem or the main part of a word [e.g. sing is the stem for sings, singer, singing and singalong]. Stemming can be automatic, or it may require use of a wild card, symbolized by an asterisk [*], to initiate.

Query Example: sing*

5. Case Sensitive

• Adjacent capitalized words are treated as a single proper name, e. g. George Washington.

• Commas separate proper names from each other.

Query Example: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson