Helpful Search Engine Tips

YAHOO • ALTA VISTA • WEBCRAWLER • LYCOS • EXCITE • INFOSEEK

For search engines use a natural word or phrase

weather richmond
what is the weather in richmond?

Click Search (or press Enter key).

If the information you seek isn’t on the first couple of pages, add more specific words

richmond indiana weather
what is the weather in richmond indiana?

+ AND —

Attaching + requires a word to be in search results.
+san +francisco +restaurants (pages will contain all the words)

Attaching — excludes a word in search results.
+san+francisco -restaurants (pages will contain “san” & “francisco” but not “restaurants”)
+python -monty (pages will contain python, but not monty python)

Use lower case unless you want the search to be case sensitive

(If you search for Coffee, you will get documents that include that word with capitalization. If you seach coffee, you’ll get any page with that word.)

Putting quotes around a set of words will net words in that exact sequence
(Yahoo • Alta Vista • Webcrawler • Lycos • Infoseek)

“great barrier reef”
“you ain’t nothing but a hound dog”
“Bette Davis”
“1996 World Series Champions”

Boolean Searches
(Webcrawler • Excite • Infoseek)

AND

gardening AND vegetables
-pages will contain both words

OR
whales OR dolphins
-pages will include either word. Or both

NOT
science NOT fiction
-pages will contain “science” but not “fiction”

( )
Homer NOT (Simpson OR Alaska)
-pages will contain the first word but NOT other two
fruit AND (banana OR apple)
-pages will contain the first word and either or both of the other two

Attaching * to the right-hand side of a word will return left side partial matches (Yahoo • Alta Vista)

librar* (will net library, libraries, librarians)
comput* (will net computer, computers, computing)
gold* (will net gold, goldfinch, goldfinger, golden)