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Search Engine Tips for the Search Impaired There are dozens of search engines on the Internet and most have their own required search steps and wild card symbols (! and * are most common). If you use a search service like Starting Point (http://www.stpt.com) or Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com) that can submit your search to multiple search engines, it can be useful to know a couple of fairly standard shortcuts to help you get back more meaningful results. If you have a search window on your corporate Intranet, these should also do the trick: "" Put quotation marks around a multiple word name ("Hitachi of America") or title ("Ask Dr. Feelgood") or a sentence when you want the search to search only for exact matches to that phrase. * Put an asterisk at the end of a word root to pull up many possible variations of the word (danc* will pull up dance, dancer, dancing, Dancer, and DanCorporation) ! If an asterisk at the end doesn't do the trick, try an exclamation point. + will require matches to contain the plused word or phrase and will eliminate matches containing the minused word or phrase. Don't use a space after the + or . Using ALL LOWERCASE letters will return matches with both upper case and lower case letters; however, putting uppercase letters in your search word or phrase will force the search engine to return only exact matches. Kaye Vivian, ABC Copyright 1997 by Kaye Vivian ( kvivian@cloud9.net ). All rights reserved. |
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