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Help on Search
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Basic Search Features
Advanced Search Features
Quick Tips
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Basic Search Features
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To search, simply type your keyword(s) in the search box and press the "Search" button. Using lowercase letters will provide better search results. For a more advanced search, use one
of the following symbols along with your keyword(s):
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| Symbol |
Description |
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Leaving a space between the words in your search will find documents that contain any of the words or all words.
Example: federal government finds documents with federal, federal government, or government. |
| + |
To ensure a word is always included in your search results place the plus symbol (+) before the word.
Example: federal +government finds documents that contain both words "federal government" or the word "government". |
| - |
To ensure a word is always excluded place the minus symbol (-) in front of it.
Example: federal -government finds documents that contain the word "federal" but do not contain the word "government". |
| * |
Expand your search using the symbol for wildcards (*).
Example: big* finds documents containing the words (big, bigger, biggest, etc.)
Use an asterisk when you're not sure how a word is spelled. You may do this by placing the * at the end or in the middle of words. Do not use an asterisk at the beginning
of a word as the search will yield illogical results.
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| " " |
Phrases should be placed in "double quotes".
Example: "federal government" finds documents containing the two words federal government when they exist right next to each other. |
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Advanced Search Features
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For advanced search use one of the following keywords:
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| Keyword |
Description |
| anchor:text |
Finds pages that contain the specified word in the text of a hyperlink. Use anchor:employment to find pages with the word "employment"
in a link. |
| link:URLtext |
Finds pages that contain a specific link. Use link:scc.ca
to find all pages linking to scc.ca (Standards Council of Canada). |
| text:text |
Finds pages that contain the specified text in any part of the page other than an image tag, link, or URL. Use text:seminar
to find all pages with the word "seminar" in them. |
| title:text |
Finds pages that contain the specified word or phrase in the page title (which appears in the title bar of most browsers). The search
title:institute would find pages with "institute" as part of the title. |
| url:text |
Finds pages with a specific word or phrase in the URL. Use
url:e-purchasing to find all pages on all servers that have the word
"e-purchasing" anywhere in the host name, path, or filename. |
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Quick Tips
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Search Term |
Description |
| federal government |
Finds documents that contain either federal or government or any capitalized variant (federal, Federal Government, GOVERNMENT).
AltaVista ranks the results to show first the documents containing both words, close together, and near the top of the document. |
| federal +government |
Finds documents that contain either the words "federal government" or the word "government", but not the word
"federal" without the word "government" since all pages must have the word "government" in them. |
| federal+government |
Finds only documents that contain both words. Be sure there is no space between the plus sign and the word that follows. |
| +federal government |
All documents found must contain "federal" or any capitalized variant. Documents that contain "government" are ranked higher in the list than
documents that do not contain "government". |
| "federal government" |
Finds documents that have the two words found right next to each other. Placing quotation marks around any series of words turns
them into a phrase and tells AltaVista search engine that you are only interested in documents that have the words in this specific order. |
| +"federal government" - parliament |
Finds documents that contain the words "federal government" but do not contain the word "parliament". |
| +federal +pro* |
Finds documents that contain "federal" and any word starting with "pro" such as (programs, producer etc.). This feature will only work with a
minimum of three characters before the asterisk. Use an asterisk when you're not sure how a word is spelled or to find variations of the word. Try "big*" to find
(big, bigger, biggest, etc.). Use an asterisk at the end or in the middle of words. |
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