Techniques
General
Tips
Google
Yahoo!
Search
Teoma
Gigablast
Dogpile
Mamma
Clusty
General Tips
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Always look for an Advanced or Guided Search screen
that will spell out many of the advanced searching
techniques available to the search engine ( I will not
include discussions of Advanced search screens as the
functions are well-defined onsite)
Check Help or Tips to see what advanced search
techniques are allowed, and what syntax is used to
execute them
Keep a Cheat Sheet on hand for basic searching syntax
(See Resources list for this lesson)
Google Features
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Cached Links are links to a stripped down
snapshot of web page as it appeared when
indexed.
The "Cached" link will be missing for sites that
have not been indexed, as well as for sites
whose owners have requested we not cache
their content.
Useful for accessing sites that have been taken
down since indexed
Google Features
News is listed on the top of the results list
labeled as “News”
 Gathered from a number of news services
 Updated regularly
 Time of last update included
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Google Features
Click on Similar Pages on a result to see
more results like it
 Useful in locating useful information
without generating a new search
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Google Features
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SafeSearch: Google's SafeSearch screens for sites that contain
pornography and explicit sexual content and eliminates them from
search results.
Checks keywords and phrases, URLs and Open Directory
categories.
By default, moderate filtering is set to exclude most explicit images
from Google Image Search results.
Apply Google's SafeSearch filtering to web search results, select the
strict filtering option on the web search preferences page
To turn off filtering completely, select the "do not filter..." option
Google Tools
A calculator is built in to allow simple
computations
 Can solve arithmetic, complex math, units
of measure and conversions, and physical
constants
 Enter calculation into the search box and
hit the Enter key or click on the Google
Search button.
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Google Tools
Find definitions for words and phrases
 Type the word "define," then a space, and
then the word(s) you want defined, or type
the operator define:your term with no
space before or after the colon
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Google Tools
Froogle is Google’s product search service
 Enter a product name in the Froogle
search bar
 Product search results are linked to the
sites of merchants who participate in
Froogle
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Google Tools
The I'm Feeling Lucky button takes you
directly to the first web page Google
returned for your query.
 Enter the search word if you assume the
page you want will be on the top of the
results list
 Saves time by avoiding the result page
load and extra click
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Google Tools
Google Local searches for businesses or
organizations in a particular geographic
area
 Enter city or zip code in the search line
with a term describing the type of
organization for which you are looking
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Google Tools
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Look up US street address and phone numbers, or find who is listed under a phone
number using the Phonebook function
Listings for a US business - type the business name into the Google search box,
along with the city and state. Or type the business name and zip code.
Entering the phone number with area code will also return a complete business
listing.
Listings for a US residence - type any of the following combinations into the Google
search box:
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first name (or first initial), last name, city (state is optional)
first name (or first initial), last name, state
first name (or first initial), last name, area code
first name (or first initial), last name, zip code
phone number, including area code
last name, city, state
last name, zip code
Reverse lookup – enter a phone number or address to see to whom it belongs
Google Tools
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Specialized numbers can be searched for information
about them
Searchable number include:
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UPS tracking
FedEx tracking numbers
USPS tracking numbers
Vehicle ID (VIN) numbers
UPC codes
Telephone area codes
Patent
FAA airplane registration numbers
FCC equipment IDs
Google Tools
Spell Check looks for alternate spellings
for your word or words spelled similar to
yours and offers to launch a new search
with the alternate spelling
 Click the suggested spelling to search it
instead
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Google Tools
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The stock tool finds stock and mutual fund
information
Enter one or more NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX, or
mutual fund ticker symbols, or the name of a
corporation traded on one of the stock indices
Results will include stock and mutual fund
information from financial information providers
Google Tools
Find street maps
 Enter a U.S. street address, including zip
code or city/ state (Often, the street
address and city name is sufficient)
 Google will return a street map of the area
you indicated
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Google Tools
Check delays and weather conditions at a
particular airport and the status of flights
using the Travel tools
 Enter the airport's three letter code
followed by the word "airport."
 To check the status of a U.S. flight, type
the name of the airline followed by the
flight number
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Google Tools
If your search has non-English results,
there will be a link to a version of that page
translated into English
 Available for pages published in Italian,
French, Spanish, German, and
Portuguese
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Google Tools
Use the link: command to find out what
pages like to a particular webpage
 Enter link: followed by the url for which
you would like to see linking pages
 You cannot combine a link: search with a
regular keyword search
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Google Advance Search
Commands
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Search for documents of different file types:
Type filetype: then the extension of the file type you wish to find (notice there is no
space before or after colon)
Search filetypes 
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Adobe Portable Document Format (pdf)
Adobe PostScript (ps)
Lotus 1-2-3 (wk1, wk2, wk3, wk4, wk5, wki, wks, wku)
Lotus WordPro (lwp)
MacWrite (mw)
Microsoft Excel (xls)
Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt)
Microsoft Word (doc)
Microsoft Works (wks, wps, wdb)
Microsoft Write (wri)
Rich Text Format (rtf)
Text (ans, txt)
Google Advanced Search
Commands
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Site Search of Domain Restrict searches
specified site or domain for search words
Examples - site:.gov site:simmons.edu (notice
there is no space before or after the colon)
Use when the website is known, but the exact
location within the site is not
Example - admission site:www.stanford.edu
Google Advanced Search
Commands
Search for pages with words in particular
fields
 intitle:, allintitle:, inurl:, allinurl:
 In[field] means some or all words must be
found in the specified field
 Allin[field] means all words must be found
in the specified field
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Google Advanced Search
Commands
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+ allows common words that are ignored in a standard
search (stop words) to be included in a search
Plus sign (+) means indicated word must be included
sign in front of it. (Be sure to include a space before the
"+" sign.)
Note: not including a plus sign outside a phrase could
mean a result that does not include the word occurs
(How? Pages with all words are relevancy ranked higher,
but if multiple words are searched, pages without all
search words could make the list as a lower relevancy)
Google Advanced Search
Commands
Advanced search commands: synonym or
related term
~
 Example - ~tooth searches tooth, dental,
toothpaste, etc.
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Google Advanced Search
Commands
You can exclude a word from your search
by putting a minus sign ("-") before a word
you want to be excluded from pages in
your results
 “lead" can refer to metal or a dog leash or
the process of guiding. To find information
on the metal, search
lead -dog -guide
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Google Advanced Search
Commands
Search words as a if they appear together
in all results exactly as you have entered
them in your results
 Surround phrase in quotation marks to
execute a phrase search
 Useful when searching for sayings or
proper names.
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Google Advance Search
Commands
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Numrange can be used to specify that results
contain numbers in a range you set.
Perform a numrange search by specifying two
numbers, separated by two periods, with no
spaces
Specify a unit of measure or some other
indicator of what the number range represents
Example: 3..5 megapixel digital camera
Google Advanced Search
Commands
Boolean operator AND is assumed
between words entered in Google
 To retrieve pages that include either word
A or word B, use an uppercase OR
between terms
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Google Advance Search
Commands
Specify which language you would like
your results returned in
 Enter language: followed by the language
 Example language:english
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Google Advanced Search
Commands
Search for pages posted or updated in the
past three, six, or twelve months using the
Date: limit
 Enter date: followed by past 3 months,
past 6 months, or past year
 Example date:past year
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Google
See all “official” Google features:
http://www.google.com/help/features.html
 This is not an obvious link, an example of
how advanced search features are only
known about and/or used by “professional”
searchers
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Google
Also, try “Google Hacks”
 Hidden Google Tools, Mary Ellen Bates,
28 January 2004 – linked from syllabus
 Google Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength
Tips and Tricks, By Tara Calishain,
Rael Dornfest, O’Reilly: February 2003
Google
Also, try unofficial guides:
 Hidden Google Tools, Mary Ellen Bates,
28 January 2004 Google Hacks: 100
Industrial-Strength Tips and Tricks,
By Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest, O’Reilly:
February 2003
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Yahoo! Search Features
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Includes cached versions of pages
Yahoo! Search Features
SafeSearch screens for sites that contain
pornography and explicit sexual content
and eliminates them from search results.
 Checks keywords and phrases, URLs and
Open Directory categories.
 Turn on and off on preferences page
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Yahoo! Search Features
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Results delivered in six categories
Click tabs to view results in each category –
 Web
 Images
 Directory
 Yellow
Pages
 News
 Products
Yahoo! Search Advances Search
Commands
Support Boolean operators AND, OR, and
NOT (AND NOT or NOT can be used)
 Operators must be in upper case
 Searching can be nested using
parentheses. Operators must be in upper
case. Yahoo! can also use - for NOT but
only when it is not used along with the
Boolean operators.
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Yahoo! Search Advanced Search
Commands
Search words as a if they appear together
in all results exactly as you have entered
them in your results
 Surround phrase in quotation marks to
execute a phrase search
 Useful when searching for sayings or
proper names.
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Yahoo! Search Advanced Search
Commands
using stem: before a term to search a root
and all its possible endings
 Example stem:child will return pages
with child, children, childhood,
childlike, etc.
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Yahoo! Search Advanced Search
Commands
Use a stop word to search a wildcard word
within a phrase
 Example “weapons of a destruction” will
find results with the phrase weapons of
mass destruction
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Yahoo! Search Advanced Search
Commands
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intitle: or title: finds pages with the search
word in the title
Yahoo! Search Advanced Search
Commands
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site: or domain: limits to stated domain or site
Examples - site:.gov site:simmons.edu (notice
there is no space before or after the colon)
Use when the website is known, but the exact
location within the site is not
Example - admission site:www.stanford.edu
Yahoo! Search Advanced Search
Commands
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hostname: Similar to site: Limits to a
specific host
Yahoo! Search Advanced Search
Commands
link: finds pages that links to a specific
URL
 must include the http:// in the URL
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Yahoo! Search Advanced Search
Commands
linkdomain: limits to pages containing links
to the specified domain.
 do not include the http://
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Yahoo! Search Advanced Search
Commands
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url: finds exactly one specific URL
Yahoo! Search Advanced Search
Commands
inurl: finds search terms contained within
URLs
 inurl:features
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Yahoo! Search Advanced Search
Commands
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feature: searches for specified file types document or file types included on resulting
web pages
Included file types –
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acrobat for PDF
Applet for embedded Jave applets
activex for ActiveX controls or layouts
audio for audio formats formats
Flash for Flash files
Form for forms
frame for frames
Homepage for personal pages which use a tilde ~ before their directory
image for gif, jpg, and other image files included
Index for Home pages
Javascript for JavaScript
metaPage for page with meta tags
script for embedded scripts
shockwave for shockwave files
table for included tables
fvideo for embedded video files
Vrml for links
Yahoo! Search Advanced Search
Commands
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Expand country search on Advanced Search screen to include
areas using region:
Available areas 
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africa
asia
centralamerica
downunder
europe
mediterranean
mideast
northamerica
southamerica
southeastasia
Teoma Features
Teoma organizes sites into naturally
occurring communities that are about the
subject of each search query
 These communities are presented under
the heading Refine
 Useful in focusing in on topic among
results
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Teoma Features
Subject-Specific Popularity analyzes the
relationship of sites within a community,
ranking a site based on the number of
same-subject pages that reference
 Relevant search results ranked by
Subject-Specific Popularity are presented
under the heading Results
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Teoma Features
Identifies expert resources about a
particular subject based on subject
communities
 Essentially, ranks metasites
 This site would appear under the heading
Resources
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Teoma Advanced Search
Commands
Boolean searching is available
 Operator must be in all upper case
 By default, assumes AND between search
terms
 Use - for NOT.
 Use OR or ORR can be used for an OR
operationNesting is not available
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Teoma Advanced Search
Commands
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Search words as a if they appear together in all
results exactly as you have entered them in your
results
Surround phrase in quotation marks to execute
a phrase search
Alternately, use a dash is used between words
with no spaces as in powerpuff-girls
Useful when searching for sayings or proper
names.
Teoma Advanced Search
Commands
intitle: finds pages with the search word in
the title
 Can be combined with a phrase search
intitle:“weapons of mass destruction"
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Teoma Advanced Search
Commands
inurl:Finds pages that have the term(s)
somewhere in the URL (host name, path,
or filename)
 If one inurl: is used, all search terms are
searched within the title element
 Can be combined with a phrase search
inurl:”federated searching”
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Teoma Advanced Search
Commands
site:Finds pages from the designated Web
site or domain
 Top level domain must be included
 Paths and file names cannot be included
 An additional search term must be used
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Teoma Advanced Search
Commands
Stop words are ignored is search
 Can be included in a phrase search
 Can be forced with +
 Example +the
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Teoma Advanced Search
Commands
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Use lang: followed by a two letter code for the language to find
pages in a specific language
Available Languages and codes
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Danish lang:da
Dutch lang:nl
English lang:en
French lang:fr
German lang:de
Italian lang:it
Norwegian lang:no
Portuguese lang:pt
Spanish lang:es
Swedishlang:sv
Gigablast Features
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Indexes all meta tags
Can view meta tags in results list–
At the end of the url, add a &dt= followed by the word(s)
for the meta tags, followed by a colon, and then a
number to represent how many characters from each
meta tag should be displayed. So, for example, adding
&dt=keywords+author+generator+description:30, will
display the meta tag content for meta keywords, meta
author, meta generator, and meta description tags for
any records retrieved. Use a + between meta tag words.
Gigablast Features
Displays the date it crawled a Web page
 Displays load and update dates reported
by the Web page at the time it was
crawled
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Gigablast Advance Search
Commands
Boolean searching is available
 Operators must be capitalized
 AND, OR, and AND NOT
 + before a term to require it
 - before a term to exclude it
 Nest using parentheses
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Gigablast Advances Search
Commands
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Search words as a if they appear together in all
results exactly as you have entered them in your
results
Surround phrase in quotation marks to execute
a phrase search
Useful when searching for sayings or proper
names.
Exclude phrase searching by putting two spaces
between terms
Gigablast Advanced Search
Commands
ip: Page is the specified IP range
 Incomplete numbers are truncated ip:216.32.120 finds any computer in
216.32.120.*
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Gigablast Advanced Search
Commands
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link: Pages include a link to the specified
Gigablast Advanced Search
Commands
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site: Results are only from the specified
site
Gigablast Advanced Search
Commands
suburl:Pages have the term(s) somewhere
in the URL (host name, path, or filename)
 Example suburl:searchenginewatch
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Gigablast Advanced Search
Commands
title: Hits have the term(s) in the HTML title
element.
 Example title:"search engines"
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Gigablast Advanced Search
Commands
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type: File type.
Searchable file types
 type:pdf
for Adobe Acrobat PDFs
 type:doc for Microsoft Word documents
 type:ppt for PowerPoint presentations
 type:xls for Excel spreadsheets
 type:ps for PostScript files
 type:text for ASCII text files
 type:html for HTML Web pages
Gigablast Advanced Search
Commands
url:Result must be exactly this URL and
nothing else
 Example
url:www.slashdot.com/index.html
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Gigablast Advanced Search
Commands
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ip:Page is the specified IP range. Incomplete numbers are truncated. ip:216.32.120
finds any computer in 216.32.120.*link:Pages include a link to the specified URL.
link:searchengineshowdown.com finds pages with links to this site.site:Results are
only from the specified site. site:nasa.gov finds pages at NASA's Web
sitesuburl:Pages have the term(s) somewhere in the URL (host name, path, or
filename). suburl:searchenginewatchtitle:Hits have the term(s) in the HTML title
element. title:"search engines"type:File type. Options as of Aug. 2003 are
type:pdf for Adobe Acrobat PDFs
type:doc for Microsoft Word documents
type:ppt for PowerPoint presentations
type:xls for Excel spreadsheets
type:ps for PostScript files
type:text for ASCII text files
type:html for HTML Web pages
url:Result must be exactly this URL and nothing else.
url:www.slashdot.com/index.html
Gigablast Advanced Search
Commands
Stop words are ignored is search
 Can be included in a phrase search
 Can be forced with +
 Example +an
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Dogpile
Results
 Uses Vivisimo’s clustering engine (see Clusty in
previous lesson)
 Sponsored results now clearly identified (used to
be very unclear, steering many discerning users
away from Dogpile)
 Can choose to view results by search engine or
relevancy ranked
Dogpile
Advanced search features are not
command driven. Must us advance
search form to use advanced search
features
 Qualifiers: all words, phrase, any words,
none of these words
 Limits: language, date, domain, adult
content
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Dogpile
If you use advanced search techniques,
SE’s that do not recognize the commands
WILL NOT be searched
Mamma
Boolean searching
 And
 Or
 Not or 
Mamma
Additional power
 Plus sign (+) means results must include
indicated word
 Useful to ensure a word is included
 Useful for searching common stop words
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Mamma
Phrase searching
 Use quotation marks for phrase searching

Mamma
If you use advanced search techniques,
SE’s that do not recognize the commands
WILL NOT be searched
Clusty
Results
 Clicking
opens the result in a new
browser window
 Clicking the
highlights all of the clusters
containing the result
 Clicking the
shows a preview
Clusty
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Results: Clustering
Groups results based on content, source, and
usefulness
Click on cluster name to view results
Number of unique results is listed next to name
Click on plus sign to expand cluster and see
results and sub-clusters
If more clusters are available, click more… to
see them
Clusty
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Boolean searching
AND or + or and or nothing - Finds documents
containing all of the specified words or phrases.
Video AND disc finds documents with both the
word video and the word disc. This is the default
OR or or finds documents containing at least
one of the specified words or phrases. The
documents returned can contain both words
AND NOT,NOT or - excludes documents
containing the specified word or phrase
Clusty
Phrase searching
 " " finds documents containing the exact
phrase
Clusty
Advanced search commands:
 domain:domainname finds pages within
the specified domain
 host: or site:hostname finds pages on a
specific host
Clusty
Also use advanced search form
 Choose sources
 Limits: number of results per cluster, time
searched in each source, language, and
adult content
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Kart00
Boolean
 +, AND are assumed, spaces are read as
Boolean “and”
 - OR means at least one word must
appear on a page
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Kart00
Proximity searching
 “phrase” for phrase searching
 NEAR commands words to fall close to
one another
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Kart00
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Advanced search commands:
URL : Search different URLs with a defined word
LIKE : Search similar sites
HOST : Search on a specific site
TITLE : Search pages which title contains a specific
word
DOMAIN : Search pages on a defined domain
TEXT : Search on the text of the page as a priority
LINK : Search a word on the hypertext link
IMAGE : Search images
Kart00
Truncation
 Use an asterisk * to stand for any possible
ending for a root
 Kart00 adds endings and searches all
options in SE’s
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Kart00
Natural language searching
 If you use a question mark, Kart00 will
analyze the question and turn it into a
search
 Proprietary algorithm translates the
“question” into syntax of queried SE’s
Kart00
Results are delivered visually
 Mapped results show how they are related
to search and each other
 Print, send, or save map
 Complex legend of visual cues
Kart00
Results: point at a page in results map
 lines connect it to relevant keywords
 description of the page on the left
 Right side of the page allows for results
access options: open the page, see
related sites, see other pages on site, see
homepage on site, modify, erase, copy
Kart00
Results: point at a topic in map or on right
 Lines connect to relevant results
 Click to see map for that topic within the
context of your search word