Advanced Search Engine Tactics

Some engines, in addition to the '+' sign recognize the Boolean AND command (Match All). Some engines allow the Boolean OR command to produce articles which match any of the submitted terms (Match Any). In some cases these require additional parameters from the search engine's menu. In most cases the engines allow nesting of the terms using parenthesis.

Some engines allow searching within the title of a web page. And some allow you to submit the documents to a specific site. Some allow searches of just an URL. Finally, some engines allow you to search for all pages linking to a particular page, or domain.

Several engines allow you to pursue a wildcard strategy. This is a good tactic to use to include plurals, or if you are unsure of the spelling of a term.

A few engines allow additional commands which are more powerful in focusing the search. These include AltaVista, Go, Lycos, NorthernLight, and the Inktomi engines HotBot, MSNSearch, and Snap). And some produce with articles a feature which allows the user to see similar pages. This last feature can be particularly powerful.

Here's a summary of the more advanced capabilities of the more popular search engines.

SearchTool	Title	Site	URL	Wild-card	Near	Nest	Or	And	Not
AOL Search	N	N	N	*	Near	()	Y	Y	Y
AltaVista	title:	host:	url:	*	Near	()	Y	Y	Y
Ask Jeeves						()	Y	Y	Y
Direct Hit						()	Y	Y	Y
Excite	N	N	N	N		()	Y	Y	Y
FAST Search						()	Y	Y	Y
Go / Infoseek		site:	url:	N		()	N	N	N
GoTo	title:	domain:	N	N		N	Y	Y	Y
Google	N	N	N	N		N	N	N	N
HotBot	title:	domain:	N	*		()	Y	Y	Y
IWon						()	Y	Y	Y
Inktomi						()	Y	Y	Y
LookSmart	N	N	N	N		N	N	N	N
Lycos	Menu	Menu	Menu	N	Near	()	Y	Y	Y
MSN Search	title:	domain:	N	*	Near	()	Y	Y	Y
NBCi						()	Y	Y	Y
Netscape Search	N	N	N			()	Y	Y	Y
Northern Light	title:		url:	*		()	Y	Y	Y
Open Directory						()	Y	Y	Y
Raging Search						()	Y	Y	Y
RealNames						()	Y	Y	Y
WebCrawler	N	N	N	N	Near	()	Y	Y	Y
Yahoo	t:	N	u:	*		N	N	N	N

SearchTool	Related Searches	Cluster	Find Similar	Search Within	Phrase Search	Advanced Search
AOL Search	Y		Y			Y
AltaVista	Y	Y			Y	Y
Ask Jeeves
Direct Hit
Excite		Y				Y
FAST Search
Go / Infoseek		Y	&January 16, 2007="center">Y		Y
GoTo	Y	Y
Google		Y	Y		Y
HotBot	Y	Y		Y		Y
IWon	Y	Y				Y
Inktomi
LookSmart
Lycos				Y		Y
MSN Search		Y				Y
NBCi
Netscape Search
Northern Light		Y				Y
Open Directory
Raging Search
RealNames
WebCrawler
Yahoo!						Y

SearchTools Introduction
SearchTools Strategy

		Copyright © 2001 by Paladin Consultants,LLC Chatham, NJ All Rights Reserved This page revised   May 23, 2006