Tips for Searching
The tips on this page are modified from the original text © 1997-2002 by Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
At its simplest, a query can be just a word or a phrase. But with the tips on this page, you can expand the focus of your query to give you more complete results. These tips will get you started with basic query language and acquaint you with the full power of Indexing Service.
Look for words with the same prefix. For example, in your query form type key* to find key, keying, keyhole, keyboard, and so on.
Search for all forms of a word. For example, in the form type sink** to find sink, sinking, sank, and sunk.
Search with the keyword NEAR, rather than AND, for words close to each other. For example, both of these queries, system and manager and system near manager, look for the words system and manager on the same page. But with NEAR, the returned pages are ranked in order of proximity: The closer together the words are, the higher the rank of that page.
Refine your queries with the AND NOT keywords to exclude certain text from your search. For example, if you want to find all instances of surfing but not the Net, write the following query:
surfing AND NOT the Net
Abbott OR Costello
This query finds all pages that mention Abbott or Costello or both.
Put quotation marks around keywords or check the exact match box if you want Indexing Service to take them literally. For instance, if you type the following query:
"system near manager"
Indexing Service will literally look for the complete phrase system near manager. But if you type the same query without the quotation marks, (and with exact match turned off):
system near manager
Indexing Service searches all documents for the words system and manager.
The tips on this page are modified from the original text © 1997-2002 by Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.