Advanced Searching

Have you ever not been able to fnd what you are looking for when using a search engine or directory? Most users assume that if they cannot find what they are looking for after a few minutes that the information is not on the Web. It could be that the information is not available via the Web, but most likely, searching smarter will enable you to find what you are looking for. Because there is no standard for categorizing or presenting information on the Web, users must sometimes employ a number of strategies to make sure they find the information for which they are looking. Using the Web to locate information is a process and, with practice, users can perfect their strategies for using the various resources on the Web.

Let's return to our "puppies" search, for instance. If a user performs a simple, keyword search using the word "puppies" on Google, about 1,330,000 hits are returned (as of May 2003). That is a lot of resources -- too many! The results include Web sites about caring for puppies, breeding puppies, feeding puppies, pictures of various kinds of puppies, etc. Resources about Hush Puppies, Pound Puppies, stuffed animals, and songs about puppies are also included in the hits. Some of the resources may contain information relevant to your search, but many probably do not.

This is when the "Advanced Search" function offered by most search engines and directories comes to the rescue. If the use can further identify what she/he would like to know about puppies, he/she can use the "Advanced Search" function to limit the number of Web sites and pages returned to those that are most relevant. In our example, the user actually wants to find information on house training a toy poodle puppy. She/he can use the "Advanced Search" function in Google to limit the number of returned hits.

Almost all search engines offer an "Advanced Search" feature that makes it easy for users to take advantage of the advanced search options employed by most search engines. On the Google home page, this feature can be seen as a link to the right of the dialog box:

The "Advanced Search" feature allows a user to further refine her/his search criteria by including or excluding terms; requiring the presence of both terms in a specific order, or as a phrase; limiting the language in which the Web page is written; the date the Web page was created; or by limiting the the placement of the word on the page: in the title, text, URL, or links of the page. Users can invoke this feature by completing a simple search form:

Our user refines his/her search by requiring all of the words "toy," poodle," and "puppy." The user also requires the exact phrase "house training" as opposed to "house" and "training." (The user might also include "toy poodle" as a phrase since the words will, most likely, appear next to each other on the Web page.) This user has also limited the language of the Web pages to English:

Once all of the relevant search criteria has been included, the user clicks the "Google Search" button. The results page looks very similar to the regular Google search results page:

In May of 2002, 198 results are returned for this search. Because the Web is dynamic and constantly changing, this same search in May of 2003 returns 459 hits. 200 - 460 is a lot more manageable than 3 million hits! The first four results look directly relevant to the information required.

Boolean Operators

There are other ways of achieving the same results with Google and other search engines.

Most search engines allow the use of Boolean operators. There are 3 Boolean operators that allow users to refine their queries. These operators are: AND, OR, and NOT.

AND (+)	results should contain all of the words	ex. puppies AND poodle; +puppies +poodle
OR	results should contain at least one of the words	ex. puppies OR puppy
NOT (-)	results should not contain any of the words	ex. puppies NOT hush; puppies -hush

To achieve the similar results to the Google "Advanced Search" for information about how to house train toy poodle puppies, the user would type in the query: "toy" and "poodle" and "puppy" and "house" and "training" in the dialog box:

Once the query has been entered, click on the "Google Search" button or hit the "Enter" key on the keyboard. The results are very similar to those returned by the "Advanced Search":

Note: Google automatically assumes the "and" so it not necessary to put "and" between each word. Not all search engines assume "and," so it is a good rule of thumb to include the boolean operator in your search string.

In addition to using these boolean operators, putting phrases in quotation marks will return only those Web sites and pages that include the phrase instead of all Web sites and pages that include both of the words, though not necessarily near each other on the page. For example:

This strategy also limits the number of hits returned; a search for "house" and "training" returns about 3,540,00 hits, while a search for "house training" returns only about 232,000 hit (May 2003).

TRY IT OUT!

Try an "Advanced Search" of your own at Google: http://www.google.com/. (Note: This link will open a new browser window. Once you are ready to come back to the lesson, simply close the new browser window.)

Go to Advanced Searching Task.