Use the tips below to refine your search and find more specific results.
Queries are not case-sensitive. You may type them in uppercase or lowercase.
Example - type sports events. Since the search is not case-sensitive, this is equivalent to Sports Events.
Look for a PHRASE. Put double quotes around the words that you want treated as a phrase.
Example - type "sports events" to find the exact phrase sports events. Since the search is not case-sensitive, this is equivalent to Sports Events.
Look for two or more words at once by using the AND operator.
Example - type sports AND events to find documents that have both the word sports and the word events anywhere.
Look for words that are close to each other by using the NEAR operator instead of the NEAR operator.
When you use NEAR, the closer together the words are, the higher the rank of the page, so the higher it appears in the list of search results.
Example - type sports NEAR events to match documents where the word sports is within 50 words of the word events.
Look for synonyms or similar words by using the OR operator.
Note that if you don't use the OR operator and search using multiple words, the words are treated as a phrase.
Example - type dogs OR puppies to find the word dogs or the word puppies, but not necessarily both.
Limit your search by using the AND NOT operator to exclude words.
Example - type surfing AND NOT the Internet to find all instances of surfing, as long as surfing is not followed by the phrase the Internet.
Use double quotes if you want to use AND, OR, NOT, or NEAR literally.
Example - type "houses near parks" to find documents with the phrase houses near parks. Without the double quotes, this query would use the NEAR operator instead of the phrase.
Use a single asterisk (*) to look for words that begin with the same letters.
Example - type key* to find key, keying, keyhole, keyboard, and so on.
Use a double asterisk (**) to look for all forms of a word.
Example - type fly** to match fly, flew, flown, and flying.
Noise words are treated as placeholders in phrase and proximity queries.
For example, if you searched for Smith for President, the results could give you Smith for President and Smith and President, because "for" is a noise word.
Punctuation marks (commas, semicolons, periods, and the like) are ignored during a search.
Example - paper, mill, international is the same as paper mill international.
To use characters such as &, |, ^, #, @, $, (, ), in a query, enclose your query in quotation marks (").
See PHRASE above for examples.
Automatic Exclusion of Common Words (stop words).
This search ignores common words and characters such as "where" and "how", as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results.
If a common word has been excluded, you will see the details on the results page below the search box.
Free-Text Queries.
Free-text queries are accomplished by attempting to find the meaning, not the exact wording, of the query. Boolean, proximity, and wildcard operators are all ignored within a free-text query by using the prefix $contents (italics for emphasis).
For example, if you wanted to search for a document that tells you how to perform a free-text query in Index Server, you would type:
$contents how do I perform a free-text query?
The query will yield several responses. You will find that some of these responses will be relevant, and many will not. Check the abstract of each returned document to find the one(s) that meet your criteria. It can definitely make searching for a needle in a haystack a little easier!
