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Back to SearchSearch TipsAn Overview Here's a quick overview of the rest of our Basic Help. Just click on the links to jump to these sections.
What is an 'Index'?
What is a word?
What is a phrase?
Simple Tips for More Exact Searches
Fancy Features for Typical Searches Back to Search
Webster's dictionary describes an `index' as "a sequential arrangement of
material." Our index is a large, growing, organized collection of Web
pages and discussion group pages from around the world. The `index'
becomes larger everyday as people send us the addresses for new Web
pages. We also have technology that crawls the Web looking for links to
new pages. When you use our search service, you search the entire
collection using keywords or phrases.When searching, think of a word as a combination of letters and
numbers. The search service needs to know how to separate words and
numbers to find exactly what you want on the Internet. You can separate
words using white space and tabs.You can link words and numbers together into phrases if you want
specific words or numbers to appear together in your result pages. If you
want to find an exact phrase, use "double quotation marks" around the
phrase when you enter words in the search box.Example #1: To find lyrics by the King, type "you ain't nothing but a houndog" in the search box.
You can also create phrases using punctuation or special characters
such as dashes, underscore lines, commas, slashes, or dots.Example #2: Try searching for 1-800-999-9999 instead of 1 800 999 9999. The dashes link the numbers together as a phrase.
Simple Tips for More Exact Searches
Viewing your search results in your native language:
Using the Language pull-down menu in the search box, you can find all
the documents on the Web about a given topic, originally written in a
specific language. This type of search excludes other Web sites written
in other languages so that you can make your search even more exact.Example: If you select the Italian pull-down option when searching for Roma, you will see result pages including the word Roma written on Italian Web pages.
When in doubt, use lowercase text in your searches.
When you use lowercase text, the search service finds both upper and lowercase results.
When you use upper case text, the search service finds only upper case.Example: When you search for paris, you'll find Paris, paris, and PARIS in your result ages. However, when you search for Paris, you'll only see Paris in the result pages.
Including or excluding words:
To make sure that a specific word is always included in your search
topic, place the plus (+) symbol before the key word in the search box.
To make sure that a specific word is always excluded from your search
topic, place a minus (-) sign before the keyword in the search box.Example: To find recipes for cookies with oatmeal but without raisins, try recipe cookie +oatmeal -raisin.
Expand your search using wildcards (*):
By typing an * at the end of a keyword, you can search for the word with multiple endings.Example: Try wish*, to find wish, wishes, wishful,wishbone, and wishy-washy.
Fancy Features for Typical Searches
AltaVista searches more than just text. Here are all of the other ways you can search on the net:
Keyword
Function
anchor:text
Finds pages that contain the specified
word or phrase in the text of a hyperlink.
anchor:"Click here to visit AltaVista"
would find pages with "Click here to visit
AltaVista" as a link.
applet:class
Finds pages that contain a specified
Java applet. Use applet:morph to find
pages using applets called morph.
domain:domainname
Finds pages within the specified
domain. Use domain:de to find pages
from Germany, or use domain:org to
find pages from organizations.
host:name
Finds pages on a specific computer.
The search host:altavista.digital.com
would find pages on the AltaVista
computer, and
host:dilbert.unitedmedia.com would
find pages on the computer called
dilbert at unitedmedia.com.
image:filename
Finds pages with images having a
specific filename. Use image:elvis to
find pages with images called elvis.
link:URLtext
Finds pages with a link to a page with
the specified URL text. Use
link:altavista.digital.com to find all
pages linking to AltaVista.
text:text
Finds pages that contain the specified
text in any part of the page other than
an image tag, link, or URL. The search
text:cow9 would find all pages with the
term cow9 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:Elvis would
find pages with Elvis in the title.
url:text
Finds pages with a specific word or
phrase in the URL. Use url:altavista to
find all pages on all servers that have
the word altavista in the host name,
path, or filename--the complete URL, in
other words.