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CompComm Search Engine
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| Advanced Search | Go To Simple Search |
| Make sure your search terms are spelled correctly. Using Simple Search, the search engine will attempt to find words that sound similar to your search terms, but it is always best to try and spell the search terms correctly. When using the Advanced Search, one may select No sound-alike matching which makes correct spelling necessary. |
| Example: |
| our free service |
| Use multiple words when performing your search. The search results will return more refined results from several words than from a single word. For example, typing our free service will return more relevant results than typing only service. (Keep in mind that relevant results are returned even if they don't contain all query terms but see below for use of quotation marks and the plus (+) and minus (-) signs.) |
| Examples: |
| safe secure privacy security |
| The more similar words you use in a search, the more relevant results you will get back. |
| Example: |
| "our pledge to you" |
| Use quotation marks to find words which must appear adjacent to each other, otherwise the search results will include the word our, pledge, to, and the word you, but not necessarily in that order. The words may appear anywhere, and in any order, within the document. (When using the Advanced Search, one may select Any word, All words or Exact phrase.) |
| Examples: |
| Use a plus sign when your search term or phrase must appear in the search results. Use a minus sign to indicate undesirable term(s). The plus sign tells the search engine that a certain word or phrase is required in the search results, and a minus sign indicates that a word or phrase must be absent in the search results. |
| Note: A phrase must be contained within quotation marks. Leave no spaces between the plus or minus sign and the term. |
| Examples: |
| Titles Only: about |
| Descriptions Only: "Our Team" |
| Keywords Only: membership |
| Body Only: security |
| URL: help |
| Field searches allow you to create specific searches for words that appear in a specific part of a document. A field search can be performed on body text (body:), title text (title:), meta description (desc:), meta key words (keys:) or URL (url:). The field name should be in lowercase and immediately followed by a colon. There should be no spaces between the colon and the search term. |
| Note: The field searches can only be followed by a word or phrase. Phrases must be contained within quotation marks. |
| Examples: |
| wh* |
| "wh* are" |
| 415-*-* |
| Wildcard searches can expand the number of matches for a particular request. The * character is used as the wildcard character. For instance, searching for wh* will find the words what, why, when, whether, and any other word that starts with wh. Searching for *her* will find the words here, whether, together, gathering, and any other word that contains her anywhere in the word. |
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Wildcards may be combined with the standard plus (+) and minus (-) modifiers, quotes for phrases, as well as the field search specifiers. +wh* -se*ch will find all pages which have a word that starts with wh and which does not contain a word that starts with se and ends with ch. "wh* are" will find the phrases where are, what are, why are, etc. |
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| Go to Top of Page | email to: Gray Shockley Vicksburg, Mississippi US gray@compcomm.com |
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| Created: December 1995 | Portions of this page copyright © 1999 Avivo Corporation | Updated: 28 February 2000 |