Transcript Internet Search Operators

Internet
Search Operators
Richard Goldman
January 26, 2000
Search Operators
OR Search
Used to find sites that contain words
such as United, States, OR
Constitution.
 Type in the three words.
 This will find sites that have any of
these three words in them.
Example:
united states constitution

And Search
Used to find sites that must contain
words such as United, States, AND
Constitution.
 Put a plus sign (+) in front of each word
that must be found at the site.
 This will find sites that have all of the
words with the plus signs.
Example:
+united +states +constitution

AND Search with Other Words
Used to find sites that must contain words
such as Constitution but may also contain
United and States.
 Put a plus sign (+) in front of each word that
must be found at the site.
 Enter other words that would be helpful, but
not required, with out the plus sign (+).
 This will find sites that have all of the words
with the plus signs and the other words will be
ranked high on the list.
Example:
united states +constitution

NOT Search
Used to find sites that contain words such as
Constitution but NOT the words United or
States.
 Put a plus minus (-) in front of each word that
must not be found at the site.
Example:
-united -states constitution


This will find sites that have the word
Constitution but will not include any sites that
have either United or States.
Phrase Search
Used to find sites that contain phrases
such as United States Constitution.
 Enclose the phrase within quote marks.
 This will find sites that have these three
words located next to each other (but not
necessarily in the same order.)
Example:
“united states constitution”

Title Search
Searches the titles of web pages only.
 Type the word title followed by a colon (title:)
followed by you search words.
 This will direct to search to look for words in
the page titles only.
Example:
title:united states constitution

Case Sensitive Search
Used to find sites that must contain
capitalized words such as States but not
states.
 Type only the letters that must be
capitalized in capitals.
 Words that are typed in lower case will
return both upper and lower case
occurrences of the word.
Example:
States

Advanced Search Pages



Instead of learning search operators, you
can also use the Advanced Search pages to
enter more focused searches.
Many Search Engines contain a button or
link to an advanced search page.
The advanced search page will have text
boxes, check boxes, and or pull-down
boxes that allow you to select or enter
advanced search criteria.
Resource

This information came from
selecting How to Search from the
Infoseek search site.
Disclaimer

These search commands, plus others
not covered here, are standards that
may not be supported by all search
engines.