| Help
on Making Queries |
Use More Words
The easiest way to narrow your
Excite for Web Servers search and the first thing you should try is to
simply use more words in your query. The greater the detail you provide,
the better Excite for Web Servers is able to find precisely what you're
looking for. Also try using the Query By Example option on the search results
page |
Use + to Require Words
Put a plus sign (+) in front of
a search word and Excite for Web Servers will make sure that ALL of the
documents it returns contain the word. Example search: Travel +France. |
Use - to Exclude Words
Put a minus sign (-) in front of
a search word and Excite for Web Servers will make sure that NONE of the
documents it returns contain the word. Example search: Jaguar -car -automobiles |
Use AND, OR, NOT, AND NOT, ( )
Excite for Web Servers supports
full Boolean operators and syntax. You c an use the AND, OR, NOT, and AND
NOT operators, and parentheses ( ) for grouping . Example search: swimming
AND (man OR woman). |
| Using a Plus Sign (+) to Require
Words |
What it does:
Excite for Web Servers will make
sure that ALL of the documents it finds include the word(s) you specify
as being required. |
How to use it:
In your search text, put a plus
sign (+) in front of words that must be in documents that Excite for Web
Servers finds. Do not put a space between the plus sign (+) and the word.
For example, to find documents about hockey, but only those with the term
NHL in them you could enter: |
| hockey +NHL |
What's different about it:
Without the plus sign (+), Excite
for Web Servers looks for documents about any of the words in your search
text. Excite for Web Servers will rank documents that have all of the words
higher, but will also list documents that have only some of your search
words as well as documents that may have none of your search words, but
that appear to be conceptually related. |
The downside:
You may miss related documents
that don't have the words you specify as required. For example, the search
"hockey +NHL" would not include documents that have the words National
Hockey League, but not NHL. |
| Using a Minus Sign (-) to Exclude
Words |
What it does:
Excite for Web Servers will make
sure that NONE of the documents it finds contain any word(s) you specify
to exclude. |
How to do it:
In your search text, put a minus
sign (-) in front of words that must not be in documents that Excite for
Web Servers finds. Do not put any space between the minus sign (-) and
the word. For example, if you want to find documents about zeppelin aircraft
but not the rock band Led Zeppelin, you could enter: Zeppelin -Led |
What's different about it:
Without the minus sign (-), Excite
for Web Servers looks for documents that are conceptually-related to all
the search words you provide, rather than looking for items to exclude
from the results. |
The downside:
It's easy to exclude too much.
For example, if you were looking for information on greyhound dogs and
not the bus company, the search "greyhound -bus" would exclude a document
that was all about greyhounds, but that had the sentence "the greyhound
trainers arrived by bus." |
| Boolean Operators: AND, OR, NOT
and () |
What they do/How to use them:
AND - Documents found must contain
all words joined by the AND operator. Note that this is equivalent to putting
a plus sign (+) in front of the word. For example, to find documents that
have all of the words wizard, oz and movie, you could enter: wizard AND
oz AND movie |
| OR - Documents found must contain
at least one of the words joined by OR. For example, to find documents
that have either the words cat or kitten you could enter: cat OR kitten |
| AND NOT - Documents found cannot
contain the word after the term AND NOT. Note that this is equivalent to
putting a minus sign (-) in front of the word. For example, to find documents
that have the word pets, but not the word dogs, you could enter: pets AND
NOT dogs |
| ( ) - Parentheses are used to group
portions of Boolean queries together. For example, to find documents that
have the word fruit, and either the word banana or the word apple in them,
you could enter: fruit AND (banana OR apple) |
What's different about it:
Allows for excluding and requiring
words, and complex combinations of words. |
The downside:
It's often difficult to specify
exactly what you want to include or exclude. You can also get unexpected
results if you are not careful about your use of operators and parentheses.
For example, the search bananas OR apples AND oranges is the same as the
search bananas OR (apples AND oranges). Both queries will find documents
that contain both apples and oranges, together with documents that contain
the word bananas. However, the query (bananas OR apples) AND oranges is
not the same. It will find documents containing the word oranges and, in
the same document, either bananas or apples. Be careful out there! |
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