Search like a pro...

Understand what 'boolean' means, but better still, know how to use it to your benefit!

Which search engine is most likely to hold what you are searching for...?

The internet is a gold mine of information just waiting for you to tap its veins and harvest it's knowledge in ways you never imagined. Are you ready to get started?

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Try these unique search engines...
the technology of search engines is contantly evolving.

SearchMother.com is an example of a unique Meta Search Engine.	You can use Queryster to: • Search the Web • Get search results from different search engines, and compare them • If you have a website, check if your site is included in various search engines
Somthing New and Different!	Visual Document Clustering.

Diana Botluk, author of The Legal List: Research on the Internet, has written extensively about online legal research.  Diana was named one of the top online legal researchers in T.R. Halvorson's Law of the Super Searchers: The Online Secrets of Top Legal Researchers (CyberAge Books, 2000).  With over 20 years of experience in online research, she has designed and delivered many special workshops and demonstrations in legal research and online resources for a variety of continuing legal education and continuing library education organizations.  Diana earned her J.D. in 1984 from Catholic University Law School.

This chart is part of Diana Botluk's Power Searching on the Web seminar. The Power Searching seminar outline is located at http://websearchschool.com/powersearching.

© 2004 Diana Botluk - Please contact Diana for permission to use this material.

Searching Features
	AlltheWeb	AltaVista	Google	Lycos	MSN	Teoma	Wisenut	Yahoo!
Inclusive Terms	Default   Advanced:  All of the Words	Default and +   Advanced: All the Words	Default   Advanced: All the Words	Default   Advanced: All of the Words	Default	Default   Advanced: Must	Default   WiseSearch: All	Default   Advanced: All
Alternative Terms	OR   Advanced: or Any on drop down box	OR   Advanced: Any on drop down box   OR in Boolean box	OR   Advanced:  At Least One	OR   Advanced:  Any of the Words	OR	OR	not supported	OR   Advanced:  Any of the Words
Phrases	Quotes   Advanced: phrase on drop down box	Quotes   Advanced: phrase	Quotes   Advanced: phrase	Quotes   Advanced:  Exact Phrase	Quotes   Advanced:  Exact Phrase	Find this Phrase checkbox	Quotes   WiseSearch: Exact Phrase	Quotes   Advanced: Exact Phrase
Exclusion	- (minus sign)   Advanced: andnot not include on drop down box (Filters)	- (minus sign)   NOT   Advanced: NOT in Boolean box	- (minus sign)   Advanced: without	- (minus sign)   Advanced: None of the Words	Advanced:  AND NOT when using a Boolean expression	- (minus sign)   Advanced: must not	- (minus sign)   WiseSearch: without	Advanced: none
Truncation	no		Automatic stemming in some instances	no	Enable word stemming on advanced pg	no	no	no
Search by Levels	yes	no	yes	yes	no	only with suggested refinements	no	no
Restrictors (Search by Fields)	language, domain, IP address, file format, date.   Will support the following keyword prefixes: site: url: link: title:	date, file type, location   Will support the following prefixes: domain: host: link: title: url:	domain, language, date, page level, file format, occurences   Supports the following prefixes: intitle: allintitle: site: inurl: filetype:   Putting ~ before a word searches for synonyms   Search for numeric range by placing two periods between numbers	domain, language, title, url	region, language, domain, page level, file type, media type	title, url, language, domain, region, date   Will support the following prefixes: intitle: inurl: geoloc: site: beforedate: afterdate: betweendate:	no	date, site, domain, country, language, file format

Results Display Features
	AlltheWeb	AltaVista	Google	Lycos	MSN	Teoma	Wisenut	Yahoo!
Integrated Directory Results	no	Tab at top	not integrated	not integrated	a few featured sites, depending on search	no, but provides suggested sites for your search	sort of – categories appear with results, but these donÕt lead to a directory, just suggested searches with abridged results	yes
Directory Provided by:		Open Directory	Open Directory	Open Directory	MSN			Yahoo
Customized	Customize	Settings	Preferences	only slightly using Advanced	My Preferences	slightly in Preferences	Set Preferences	Preferences
Clustered/ Compressed	yes	yes	yes	not apparent	Can be toggled on Advanced Search page	yes	yes	yes
Suggested Searches/ Refinements	no	yes	no	yes – Narrow Your Search	no	yes	WiseGuide	yes – Related directly under search box
Similar Searches	no	no	yes – Similar Pages	no	no	no	no	no
Other Notable Features	Use Customize Preferences to personalize a wide variety of features	Translates results	Cached results   Will open results in second window if preferences are set that way   Translates results			Will open results in a second window if preferences are set that way	Sneak-a-Peek opens a small box with results page right in the middle of results list	Will open results in second window   Cached results

Try This Expert Search Engine - Soople.com

All 4 One MetaSearch!
combining the power of all the worlds best search engines into one.

A Visual Search Engine for Music
Want to find music similar to what you already enjoy? Musicplasma creates intriguing music maps revealing connections between musicians, styles and musical epochs.

19 Year Old Runs Successful Search Engine FyberSearch

Nathan Enns developed FyberSearch, a non-Google and non-Yahoo related search engine, when he was 18 years old. According to his about page, Enns "is now 19 as of March 21st 2004 and continues to be the sole owner of the web and image search engine." He created his engine out of frustration with current non-relevant search results.

The FyberSearch mission statement is ‘Giving You The Control'.

Check it out and add your web site...

Meta Search Engine Directory and Information

Top Directories
Directories are an excellent resource when it comes to searching for web sites. While search engines are able to list more sites, they often feature irrelevant results. Directories feature sites that have been reviewed by human editors and are categorized into topical and regional listings. This makes it easy to browse through a collection of similar sites to find the one you're looking for.

Search 101
A Beginner's Guide to Web Search

An interactive tutorial on searching with Google™

Google Help Central

Google Features - Don't Miss this!

Yahoo Search Short-cuts

news search portal for the news-a-holic

Web Searching Tips
This section of Search Engine Watch provides tips on using
search engines better, along with some fun facts such as
what people search for on search engines.

Boolean Searching on the Internet
------------------------------------------------
A PRIMER IN BOOLEAN LOGIC

Search 101 - Understanding Meta Search Engines

Yahoo! Search Help

AltaVista Basic Search Help

Teoma Search Tips

Search tips primer...
By default the search engine tries to locate pages which have exact matches for all of the words entered in your search query. If that fails, it then tries to locate pages which contain any words in your search query. If that happens a short message is displayed at the top of the search results indicating this has been done.

In addition, there are several ways to modify the default search behavior.

1. phrase search
The search engine supports three types of phrase search.
* To match an exact phrase, use quotes around the phrase
Example: "free search engine"
* To match a near (within a couple of words) phrase, use square brackets [around the words]
Example: [free search engine]
* To match a far (within several words) phrase, use braces { around the words }
Example: {free search engine}

2. + and - qualifiers
If you prepend a word with + that word is required to be on the page.
If you prepend a word with - that word is required to not be on the page.
Example: +always -never
3. * wildcard
If a query word ends with a * all words on a page which start the same way as that query word will match.
Example: gift*
4. ? wildcard
If a query word contains a ? any character will match that position.
Example: b?g
5. boolean search
You can use the following boolean operators in your search: AND, OR, NOT. These operators MUST be in capital letters.
Example: (contact AND us) OR (about AND us)
All of these techniques can be combined: +alway* -ne??r*

Atomz Search Tips

Mamma.com Search Tips

Mamma.com
Search Engines - what are they, and how do they differ?

Boolean Operators
Boolean operators are another powerful tool to help be very specific about what you are looking for as well as what you are not looking for. There are three important Boolean operators to be aware of: AND, OR and NOT. (Words are capitalized for emphasis only. Netscape Search is not case sensitive.) As mentioned above, AND is the default operator for multiple word search terms. AND forces both words on either side of the operator to be found in the search. If one or both are not found, then the site is not considered a matching site. The search term

Britney Spears

is actually treated as

Britney AND Spears

Sites that contain "Britney" and "Spears" are considered matches.

The OR operator causes the search engine to check for the existence of the search terms on either side of the OR operator. If you were shopping for a motorcycle but couldn't decide between a Kawasaki or a Suzuki, your search term might be:

Kawasaki OR Suzuki

Sites that contain either "Kawasaki" or "Suzuki" will be considered matches.

The NOT operator causes the search engine to eliminate sites based on the existence of the search term following the NOT operator. For example, if you were searching for sites that dealt with chemicals but weren't interested in sites that dealt with chemical addiction, your search term might be:

chemical$ NOT addict$$$

Here, the concept of creating complex searches is also introduced. A complex search combines wild cards with Boolean operators. Sites that contain either "chemical" or "chemicals" will be used to build the list of matching sites. Then any site in the set of matching sites that contains the words "addict", "addicted", "addiction" or "addicting" will be removed from the set of matching sites.

Netscape Search does not support shorthand operators such "+" (shorthand for AND) and "-" (shorthand for NOT)

Parentheses
Parentheses allow you to nest operators. For example, the following search term is used to find Web sites that contain images of paintings by Vincent Van Gogh or Pierre-Auguste Renoir. This could be handled with the following query:

("Vincent Van Gogh" OR "Pierre-Auguste Renoir") AND images

This search is identical to the following:

("Vincent Van Gogh" AND images) OR ("Pierre-Auguste Renoir" AND images)

Important Note
The more special operators used in a search term, the longer it will take for the search engine to construct the list of matching sites. In general, users find that obtaining higher quality results slowly is preferable to obtaining lower quality results quickly.

General Search Tips
Despite differences in each search engine's tools, there are some tools that many search engines have in common that can help refine your search to produce a more relevant set of search results. If you tend to use one search engine most often, you are encouraged to learn more about the specific features of that engine.

Improving your searches by using more words: As a general rule, the more words you use, the more accurate your search results will be. Amongst the most popular search engines on the Internet, the average search query is about two words. This tends to make the problem of returning the most relevant results more difficult to solve. By using more words, you will get a smaller set of search results that will be more relevant to you.

Using double quotation marks to search for phrases and proper names: If you enclose two or more words in double quotation marks ("), your search terms will be treated as a phrase. A phrase forces the search engine to find the words you searched for in the same exact order on Web sites. For example, a search for golf clubs is the same as searching for golf AND clubs. In this case, sites where the words 'golf' and 'clubs' both exist on the site but not necessarily in the same order or next each other will be returned as matches. On the other hand, a search of "golf clubs" will only return Web sites that contiained the two words adjacent to each other and in the same order. When searching for people, double quotation marks will help you refine the search results. For example, a search for George Washington will return sites containing the word 'George' and sites containing the word 'Washington' which is probably not what you wanted. A search for "George Washington" would more likely hit the mark.

Searching for word variations with word stemming, fuzzy searching and wild card characters: There are a number of operators (special characters) that cause some search engines to consider variations of your search term.

Word Stemming - The first concept to understand is how the search engine you are using handles word stemming. When word stemming is on, the search engine will also search for words that contain your search term as its root. For example, if you searched for test - a search engine with word stemming on would also search for tests, tested, tester, testers, testing, and so on. In general, whether word stemming is left on or off by default, there is a way to switch it to the other mode. Netscape Search leaves word stemming on by default. Google does not support word stemming and does not provide a way to turn it on either. When using Google, if you want to search for variations of a word, you'll need to add those variations to your search query. To turn word stemming off with Netscape Search, insert a single quotation mark (') at the end of the word and Netscape Search will only search for exact matches of that word. For example, test' will find sites that contain an exact match of 'test' only.

Fuzzy searching - There are special operators that enable you to exert greater control of which words should be considered a match. The fuzzy search operator makes it possible to search with a segment of a word when you don't know how to spell the entire word. For example, many medical terms and pharmaceutical products have difficult spellings. You may know how to say the word, but searching for it requires you to know how to spell as well. Fuzzy searching and wild card operators allow you to get around this problem. Netscape Search supports the use of fuzzy searching. To search for the popular antibiotic 'amoxycillin' - use the fuzzy search operator. To do this, type as much of the word as you know how to spell followed by the tilde character (~) followed by your best guess at how the rest of the word is spelled. For example, the search term amoxy~cilan will successfully return any sites that contain rough matches of this search term including the correct one.

Wild Card Characters - You could accomplish searches for different variations and unknown spellings in other ways with the use of wild card characters. Netscape Search supports three different wild card characters: the dollar sign ($), the question mark (?), and the asterisk (*). The dollar sign ($) is an optional single character wild card. It acts as a placeholder for any character in the same position or no character at all. For example, a search of colo$r will find sites that contain matches of the words 'color' and 'colour'. In contrast, the question mark is a required single character wild card. It acts as a placeholder for any character in the same position but a character must be found in this position. For example, a search of colo?r will find sites that contain matches of the word 'colour' but not 'color'. The asterisk (*) is an optional multi-character wild card. It acts as a placeholder for any number of characters in the same position or no characters at all. For example, a search of medica* will find sites that contain matches of the words 'medical', 'medicate', and 'medication' but will not consider the word 'medicine' a match. Search terms with a wild card character in the first character position will be treated as illegal queries. Additionally, you should avoid the use of wild card characters in any of the first three character positions due to the time required to perform these types of searches.

Using Boolean operators to force word inclusions and exclusions: There are primarily three Boolean operators - AND, OR, NOT - which most search engines support though they may support different variations of these. Make sure you know how the search engine you are using handles Boolean operators before you attempt to use them. The important differences to know about include case sensitivity - does the site require that these words be capitalized or not? How is the NOT operator handled? Some sites use NOT, some use AND NOT, others use ANDNOT. Another difference to be mindful of is the use of shorthand Boolean operators. The plus sign (+) placed in front of a word is a substitute for the AND operator. The minus sign (-) placed in front of a word is a substitute for the NOT operator. On sites that support the shorthand operators, the absence of any such shorthand operator implies the OR operator. Netscape Search does not support the shorthand operators. Netscape Search supports the use of the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT and it is not case sensitive. If Boolean operators are omitted, Netscape Search uses the AND operator by default.

AND - Indicates that sites must contain the word following the AND operator. For example, to find documents that contain the words 'wizard', 'oz' and 'movie' enter wizard AND oz AND movie. Since Netscape Search assumes the AND operator, a search of wizard oz movie would produce the same results.

OR - The OR operator causes the search engine to check for the existence of the search terms on either side of the OR operator. If you were shopping for a motorcycle but couldn't decide between a Kawasaki or a Suzuki, your search term might be Kawasaki OR Suzuki.

NOT - The NOT operator causes the search engine to eliminate sites based on the existence of the search term following the NOT operator. For example, if you were searching for sites that dealt with chemicals but weren't interested in sites that dealt with chemical addiction, your search term might be: chemicals NOT addiction.

Combining operators to create complex queries: The special search operators described above can typically be combined to create complex queries. Additionally, by enclosing portions of your query with parentheses, you can nest your queries as well. Continuing with the example of a search for chemical related sites that don't deal with chemical dependency ... a complex query could have been formed to allow for searches of 'chemical' or 'chemicals' while eliminating sites that contain the words 'addict', 'addiction' and 'addicting'. This can easily be accomplished with the query chemical$ NOT addict*. The string 'chemical$' searches for the desired words 'chemical' and 'chemicals'. The string 'addict*' will match on the words 'addict', 'addicts', 'addicted', 'addiction', 'addictions', 'addicting' and so on.

Using parentheses to nest queries: With parentheses, you can combine several search strings in one line to create a highly targeted search. For example, the following search term is used to find Web sites that contain images of paintings by Vincent Van Gogh or Pierre-Auguste Renoir. This could be handled with the following query:

("Vincent Van Gogh" OR "Pierre-Auguste Renoir") AND images

This search is identical to the following search:

("Vincent Van Gogh" AND images) OR ("Pierre-Auguste Renoir" AND images)

BASIC SEARCH TIPS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUICK TIPS
NOTE: These tips will work with most search engines in their basic search option.

* Use the plus (+) and minus (-) signs in front of words to force their inclusion and/or exclusion in searches.
EXAMPLE:   +meat  -potatoes
(NO space between the sign and the keyword)

* Use double quotation marks (" ") around phrases to ensure they are searched exactly as is, with the words side by side in the same order.
EXAMPLE:   "bye bye miss american pie"
(Do NOT put quotation marks around a single word.)

* Put your most important keywords first in the string.
EXAMPLE:   dog breed family pet choose

* Type keywords and phrases in lower case to find both lower and upper case versions. Typing capital letters will usually return only an exact match.
EXAMPLE:   president retrieves both president and President

* Use truncation (or stemming) and wildcards (e.g., *) to look for variations in spelling and word form.
EXAMPLE:    librar* returns library, libraries, librarian, etc.
EXAMPLE:   : colo*r returns color (American spelling) and colour (British spelling)

* Combine phrases with keywords, using the double quotes and the plus (+) and/or minus (-) signs.
EXAMPLE:  +cowboys +"wild west" -football -dallas
(In this case, if you use a keyword with a +sign, you must put the +sign in front of the phrase as well. When searching for a phrase alone, the +sign is not necessary.)

* When searching within a document for the location of your keyword(s), use the "find" command on that page.
* Know the default (basic) settings your search engine uses (OR or AND). This will have an effect on how you configure your search statement because, if you don't use any signs (+, - " "), the engine will default to its own settings.
* Know whether or not the search engine you are using maintains a stop word list (see "Stop Words" Lesson 6.) If it does, don't use known stop words in your search statement. Also, consider trying your search on another engine that does not recognize stop words.

Quick Tips for Boolean Searches
* In Boolean searches, always enclose OR statements in parentheses.
EXAMPLE:   Yosemite (campgrounds OR reservations)
* Always use CAPS when typing Boolean operators in your search statements. Most engines require that the operators (AND, OR, AND NOT/NOT) be capitalized. Other engines will accept either CAPS or lower case, so you're on safe ground if you stick to CAPS.
EXAMPLE:   "immune system" AND homeopathic (medicine OR remedy)

Search Tips from the University of California - Berkeley

BARE BONES 101:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A BASIC TUTORIAL ON SEARCHING THE WEB

SEARCHING WITH BOOLEAN LOGIC AND PROXIMITY OPERATORS
------------------------------------------------------------------------

WHAT'S A "BOOLEAN"?

Boolean logic takes its name from British mathematician George Boole (1815-1864), who wrote about a system of logic designed to produce better search results by formulating precise queries. He called it the "calculus of thought." From his writings, we have derived Boolean logic and its operators: AND, OR, and NOT, which we use to link words and phrases for more precise queries.

BOOLEAN "AND"

The Boolean AND actually narrows your search by retrieving only documents that contain every one of the keywords you enter. The more terms you enter, the narrower your search becomes.

     EXAMPLE:   truth AND justice
     EXAMPLE:   truth AND justice AND ethics AND congress


BOOLEAN "OR"

The Boolean OR expands your search by returning documents in which either or both keywords appear. Since the OR operator is usually used for keywords that are similar or synonymous, the more keywords you enter, the more documents you will retrieve.

     EXAMPLE:   college OR university
     EXAMPLE:   college OR university OR institution OR campus


BOOLEAN "NOT" / "AND NOT"

The Boolean NOT or AND NOT (sometimes typed as ANDNOT) limits your search by returning only your first keyword but not the second, even if the first word appears in that document, too.

     EXAMPLE:   saturn AND NOT car
     EXAMPLE:   pepsi AND NOT coke


NESTING -- WITH BOOLEAN OPERATORS

Nesting, i.e., using parentheses, is an effective way to combine several search statements into one search statement. Use parentheses to separate keywords when you are using more than one operator and three or more keywords.

     EXAMPLE:  (hybrid OR electric) AND (Toyota OR Honda)
     (For best results, always enclose OR statements in parentheses.)


BOOLEAN LOGIC REDUX

Boolean logic is not always simple or easy. Different search engines handle Boolean operators differently. For example, some accept NOT, while one accepts ANDNOT as one word, others AND NOT as two words. Some require the operators to be typed in capital letters while others do not.

Some search engines use drop-down menu options to spell out the Boolean logic in short phrases. For example, "All of the words" or "Must contain" equates to AND; "Any of the words" or "Should contain" equates to OR; and "Must not contain" equates to NOT.


IMPLIED BOOLEAN OPERATORS

Implied Boolean operators use the plus (+) and minus (-) symbols in place of the full Boolean operators, AND and NOT. Typing a (+) or (-) sign in front of a word will force the inclusion or exclusion of that word in the search statement.

     EXAMPLE:  +dementia -alzheimers 

Similarly, putting double quotation marks (" ") around two or more words will force them to be searched as a phrase in that exact order.

     EXAMPLE:   "green tea"

While full Boolean operators are usually accepted only in the advanced search option of search engines, implied Boolean operators are accepted in the basic search options of most search engines.


PROXIMITY OPERATORS

Proximity, or positional, operators (NEAR, ADJ, SAME, FBY) are not really part of Boolean logic, but they serve a similar function in formulating search statements.

Not all search engines accept proximity operators, but a few accept NEAR in their advanced search option. The NEAR operator allows you to search for terms situated within a specified distance of each other in any order. The closer they are, the higher the document appears in the results list. Using NEAR, when possible, in place of the Boolean AND usually returns more relevant results.

     EXAMPLE:   phylogeny NEAR ontogeny
     EXAMPLE:   de Vere NEAR Shakespeare

Even fewer search engines accept ADJ (adjacent to). ADJ works as a phrase except that the two terms, which must appear adjacent to each other in the webpage, can appear in any order.

     EXAMPLE:   Ernest ADJ Hemingway
     EXAMPLE:   endangered ADJ species

returns both Ernest Hemingway and Hemingway Ernest; endangered species and species endangered.

Other proximity operators, such as SAME (keywords found in the same field) and FBY (followed by), are used as advanced searching techniques in library and other specialized databases that contain bibliographic citations or references to journal articles, but are not yet employed by search engines.

FIELD SEARCHING
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT IS FIELD SEARCHING?

Electronic records, like print records, are organized into separate fields. A typical web page is composed of the following major fields: title, domain, host (or site), URL, and link. When information is entered into a record's field, some search engines allow you to retrieve it by using the correct field label in combination with your search term(s). Where available, field searching on the Web is a very powerful tool. It allows you to specify exactly where you want the search engine to look in the Web document.

TITLE SEARCHING

The title appears in the blue banner at the very top of your browser's window. If you know the subject of a page, it's a good bet that important words describing that subject will appear within its title. Searching for a keyword in the title field, rather than as a keyword alone, will very likely produce more relevant responses.

     EXAMPLE:    title:"web search tutorial"

returns pages that have these words in the title. (Title searches don't work very well with one word title entries.)

DOMAIN SEARCHING

If you are seeking information from a particular kind of site, you may choose to limit your field search to one of the current top level domains (see below):

* edu -- educational site
* com -- commercial business site
* gov -- U.S. governmental/non-military site
* mil -- U.S. military sites and agencies
* net -- networks, internet service providers, organizations
* org -- U.S. non-profit organizations and others
     EXAMPLE:  domain:edu AND "On the Origin of Species" AND Darwin     AND paleontology

limits your search to educational sites dealing with Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution.

Several search engines, in their advanced search option, allow you to limit your search to a specific domain by the use of drop-down menus. One, SearchEdu, does it for you by limiting its basic search option to the .edu domain exclusively.

If you are seeking information from a particular international domain, you may choose to search the domain geographically using the two-letter country code.

     EXAMPLE:     domain:UK AND "Edward de Vere 17th Earl of Oxford"

which limits your search to sites in the United Kingdom dealing with the Shakespearean authorship question.

NOTE: Because the Internet was created in this country, US was not originally assigned as a country letter code to U.S. domain names; however, it is used to designate state and local government hosts, including many public schools and some community colleges. Other countries have their own two letter codes as the final part of their hostnames, e.g., UK for United Kingdom; CA for Canada; FR for France, etc.

For a list of Internet Country Codes, go to: ISO's List of Country Codes

HOST (OR SITE) SEARCHING

If you are seeking information that resides on a specific computer or server, you can narrow your search with a "host" or "site" query.

     EXAMPLE:   host:www.sc.edu

returns pages hosted at the University of South Carolina.


URL SEARCHING

If you are seeking a specific file, and that file's name is part of the host site's URL, you may find it more quickly by choosing a URL search.

     EXAMPLE:   url:bck2skol

returns sites in which the filename, bck2skol, (my old course for Internet "newbies") is incorporated into the URL.

LINK SEARCHING

If you have a web page and would like to know who is linking to it, or if you would like to see who is linking to a particular page of interest, you may choose a LINK search.

     EXAMPLE:   link:www.sc.edu/beaufort/library/bones.html

returns pages with links to this tutorial.


IMAGE SEARCHING

If you want to find a particular image on the web, you may choose an IMAGE search. You will need to specify the image by name, which works well if the name is part of the image file name. If not, you may miss that particular image altogether.

     EXAMPLE:   IMAGE:bones.gif

(Actually, I found the "dancing bones" logo that I use for this tutorial with a Boolean search as follows:  "free gifs" AND bones)

OTHER FIELDS

Other searchable fields include anchor, applet, object, text, language, sound, pictures, and date. Date is a difficult one because, depending upon the engine, a field search on the date may return the date created, the last date the page was updated, or the date the page was "spidered."


NOTE: Some field terms are written as complete words, some only consist of a letter or two (e.g., title: or t: / url: or u:). In all field searching situations, however, the field term or field term letters are followed by a colon and then the first keyword. Do not leave any spaces between the field term, the colon, and the first keyword.

TROUBLESHOOTING: WHAT TO DO IF ...
---------------------------------------------------------------
YOUR SEARCH RETURNS A "ZILLION" DOCUMENTS

You probably typed only one term, and it was pretty common. Think of some synonyms. Try adding at least two more specific terms to your string.

YOUR SEARCH RETURNS TOO FEW DOCUMENTS

You're probably searching in the wrong place or your search is too narrow. Maybe you didn't configure your search correctly. Maybe the information you seek isn't on the Web. Try omitting some of your search terms. Try your search on another engine, metasearcher, directory, people search, or specialty resource. Ask for help.

YOUR SEARCH RETURNS A "404 -- FILE NOT FOUND" MESSAGE

This message tells you that the file you seek has been moved, removed, or renamed. Go back to the search engine and do a phrase search or a field search on the title. Try shortening the URL to see if the file might still be on the same server. Try your search on Google, which maintains cached copies of pages.

YOUR SEARCH RETURNS A "SERVER DOES NOT HAVE A DNS ENTRY" MESSAGE

This message tells you that your browser can't locate the server (i.e. the computer that hosts the Web page). It could mean that the network is busy or that the server has been removed or taken down for maintenance. Check your spelling and try again later.

YOUR SEARCH RETURNS A "SERVER ERROR" OR "SERVER IS BUSY" MESSAGE

The server you are attempting to contact may be offline, may have crashed, or may be very busy. Try again later.

YOU CAN'T FIND THE HOME PAGE FOR A WELL-KNOWN PRODUCT OR ORGANIZATION

Try guessing, experimenting with different top-level domain names by using the name, brief name, or the acronym. Many organizations use one of these in their URL.

EXAMPLE:   www.dell.com (for Dell Computers);  www.redcross.org (for the American Red Cross)

Note: This doesn't always work. You won't find the American Medical Association this way. The "ama" acronym was grabbed first by the American Marketing Association, so their URL is: www.ama.org, while the American Medical Association had to settle for www.ama-assn.org. However, it is worth a try.

Finally, if your browser is a recent Netscape upgrade, type in the word or phrase without anything else and, if Netscape can, it will match it and take you to the site automatically.