Website Search Tips

Searching for information can be a tricky thing so here are a few tips to help you along.

General Search Tips

Check spelling
Make sure your search terms are spelled correctly. Unless your spelling is correct the search engine isn't going to find many, if any, relevant results.

Use multiple words
Using multiple words will return more refined results than a single word. For example, typing "alston organic butchers" will return more relevant results than typing just "butchers".

Using the right keywords
For best results, it's important to choose your keywords wisely. Keep these tips in mind:

• Try the obvious first. If you're looking for information on Picasso, enter "Picasso" rather than "painters".
• Use words likely to appear on a site with the information you want. "Luxury hotel Alston" gets better results than "really nice places to spend the night in Alston".
• Make keywords as specific as possible. "Antique lead soldiers" gets more relevant results than "old metal toys".

Searching on

Automatic "and" Queries
By default, the Website search only returns pages that include ALL of your search terms. There is no need to include "and" between terms.

Capitalisation
Most searches (including Website's) searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case. For example, searches for "george washington", "George Washington", and "gEoRgE wAsHiNgToN" will all return the same results.

Word Variations (Stemming)
Website's searches do not use stemming. So, if you search for "taste" your search would not include results for "tasteless".

Useful Links

For more information about searching, check out these pages:

Google Help Central [http://www.google.com/help/]

Yahoo Search Help [http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/]

A Consumer's Guide to Search Engines [http://www.imagescape.com/helpweb/www/seek.html]