Power Searching For Anyone

Search engines have a variety of ways for you to refine and control your searches. Some of them offer menu systems for this. Others require you to use special commands as part of your query.

For most people, the basic commands covered on the Search Engine Math page will be sufficient. I encourage you to read the math page first. Get comfortable using the commands that are described. If you need more power after that, then review the other options on this page.

Boolean commands are NOT shown on this page. See the separate Boolean Searching page for information about these. If you don't know what Boolean commands are, don't worry about reading the page on these commands. You probably don't need them.

Not every power searching command is shown on this page, only the main ones that are most likely to be used. Read the help files at each search engine for more detailed coverage about what they offer.

Sometimes you want pages that contain any of your search terms. For example, you may want to find pages that say either Ireland or Eire. The Search Features Chart shows which search engines will do this type of search by default, without you needing to specify any commands.

At some search engines, you can do a Match Any search by using a menu next to the search box or on the advanced search page. The Search Features Chart lists where this is possible.

At Northern Light, you'll have to rely on the OR Boolean command to perform a Match Any search, and there is no way to do a Match Any search at Google.

Keep in mind that most search engines will automatically first list pages that have all your terms, then some of your terms, when you perform a Match Any search.

This is a search for pages containing all of your search terms, rather than any of them. For example, you may want to find pages with references to both Clinton and Dole on the same page.

Practically all major search engines support the + symbol as a means of doing a Match All search. These are listed on the Search Features Chart. The chart also shows which search engines will perform a Match All search by default, even if you don't use the + symbol.

See the Search Engine Math page for more specific help on using the + symbol.

Most major search engines allow you to exclude documents that contain certain words. This is a helpful way to narrow a search.

For example, you may want a page about the philosopher Calvin, not the cartoon character Calvin. By excluding pages that mention Hobbes, the cartoon character's sidekick, you will get better results.

The best way to do this is by using the - command, which is supported by practically all major search engines. These are listed on the Search Features Chart.

See the Search Engine Math page for more specific help on using the - symbol.

Practically all the major search engines support phrase searching, as shown on the Search Features Chart. Phrase searching is where a search engine will find documents that contain words in the exact order you specify. You do this by enclosing your terms with quotation marks. See the Search Engine Math page for more information on using quotation marks to perform phrase searches.

By default, AltaVista and Google attempt to perform automatic phrase searching. If this fails, they fall back to either a Match Any or Match All search. See the Search Assistance page for more information about automatic phrase searching.

Many of the major search engines allow you to search within the HTML title of a web page. This is the text that appears within the title tag of a document. For example, this page has an HTML title like this:

<title>Power Searching For Anyone</title>

If someone were to do a title search for "power searching," then this page might appear, because those words appear in the HTML title.

The Search Features Chart shows which search engines support title searching using the "title" command, which looks like this:

title:terms

where "terms" are the words you wish to search for in the title. Here are some examples:

title:mars
title:mars landings
title:"mars landings"

In the first example, we're looking for the word "mars" in page titles. In the second example, we're looking for both "mars" and "landings" in titles. In the last example, we're looking for the exact phrase "mars landings" in titles.

The title: command doesn't work at Lycos or Yahoo. At Lycos, you need to use the advanced search page to do a title search. At Yahoo, you must instead use the t: command instead of title: to search through titles.

Several of the search engines which support the title command also allow you to specify a title search using their advanced search pages.

One of the most powerful features available is the ability to control what sites are included or excluded from a search.

For example, imagine you wanted to see all the pages from Search Engine Watch. At AltaVista, you could use this command:

host:searchenginewatch.com

In response, AltaVista would display all the pages it has indexed from the searchenginewatch.com domain.

Now imagine you wanted to find all the pages from Search Engine Watch that also mention meta tags. You could do that this way:

host:searchenginewatch.com meta tags

That tells AltaVista to list pages with the words "meta" and "tags" that are within the Search Engine Watch site.

You can even combine other commands, such as those described on the Search Engine Math page. For instance, look at this example:

host:searchenginewatch.com -"meta tags"

Here, we are telling AltaVista to list all pages within Search Engine Watch that do not contain the exact phrase "meta tags."

Now, imagine you are looking for information about Mars landings but are getting overwhelmed by results from NASA. You can get rid of NASA pages by doing this:

"mars landings" -host:nasa.gov

In that example, we are looking for the phrase "mars landings" but excluding any pages from sites that end in nasa.gov. That means we will NOT get pages from sites like this:

www.ksc.nasa.gov (Kennedy Space Center)
www.jpl.nasa.gov (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

We could even decide to see all pages about Mars landing from US educational sites, which end in .edu, like this:

"mars landings" +host:edu

Finally, imagine you live outside the US and want to see results that are predominately from your country. Here's how someone in the UK might search for football (soccer) information:

"football scores" +host:uk

This finds pages that say "football scores" and which are from sites that end in the .uk domain, which is used for UK-based sites.

Not all search engines provide the ability to search by site, and the command is different for those that do. The Search Features Chart shows which search engines have this capability and the exact command to use.

Note that at Go (Infoseek), when you exclude a domain (such as the example with nasa.gov), only the exact domain you specify will be excluded. In other words, if you searched for this (using "site" rather than "host," which is Go's site search command):

"mars landings" -site:nasa.gov

only pages from the top level nasa.gov site would be excluded. You would still get pages from places such as www.ksc.nasa.gov and www.jpl.nasa.gov. An alternative would be to use the URL command (see below). This does not happen when you using the + symbol.

Lycos also provides search by site support via its advanced search page, although I've often had problems making this work.

Several of the search engines which support a site search command also allow you to specify a site search using their advanced search pages.

Several search engines offer the ability to search within the text of a URL. This is very similar to performing a site search. The Search Features Chart shows which search engines have this capability and the exact command to use.

Lycos also offers an ability do a URL search via its advanced search form, although I've often had problems making this work. Inktomi-powered services such as HotBot also have a pseduo-URL search command. 

Several search engines offer the ability to search for all the pages linking to a particular page or domain. The Search Features Chart shows which search engines have this capability and the exact command to use. 

You can search for plurals or variations of words using a wildcard character. It is also a great way to search if you don’t know the spelling of a word. The * symbol is used as the wildcard symbol at all major search services which support wildcard searching, as listed on the Search Features Chart.

The format looks like this:

• sing* finds singing and sings
• theat* finds theater and theatre

Some of the search engines offering wildcard search, plus Go, support what is called "stemming." That means they will find terms like "singing" even if you only enter "sing." This also means you may not need to use a wildcard symbol. See the Search Assistance page for more information on stemming.

Some search engines let you indicate how close words should appear to each other. Most people do not need this type of control. Usually, phrase searching is all you need. 

Several of the major search engines offer additional commands that allow you to search by media type, to search within ALT text or link text, and other types of queries. In particular, these services are notable in offering expanded features:

• AltaVista
• Inktomi-powered services (HotBot, MSN Search, Snap)
• Go
• Lycos
• Northern Light

Explore the help pages and advanced search forms at each service to better understand the additional options that are available. Also be sure to read the Search Assistance page for information about features designed to help improve searching.