Advanced Web Searching

Some engines offer limited Boolean logic with radio buttons or pull-down menu choices such as:

• Documents must include "All terms" (equivalent to using the operator AND between all terms).
• Documents must include "Any terms" (equivalent to using OR between all terms).

Many search engines offer the ability to limit searches by web page creation dates. This is a very useful tool if you are doing continuing research on a specific topic. It enables you to limit the results to pages created since your last search. It is also useful when searching for current event topics.

Note that the implementation of this feature varies widely. Some search engines like Yahoo! offer radio buttons or pull-down menus, while AltaVista and HotBot provide the ability to specify dates or timeframes. Also, date sensitivity is related to the web page creation date, not some historical timeframe. For instance, it would not be useful to use an engine's date capability to search for 1907 and information relating to the Wright brothers, since there were no web pages created in 1907.

Some engines can limit searches to specific areas, the most common being the document title and URL. Here's an example of a title search: If you are looking for information on alternative medicine and believe that there are entire web pages devoted to your subject that have the keywords in the titles, you could use the syntax: title: alternative AND medicine.

An example of URL search would be if you are looking for Apple Computer web pages. You could use: url: apple, which would return web pages created by the computer maker Apple (and others).

Some engines allow you to limit your searches to "just the Web" or just "blogs."

Popular search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo! allow you to search for various types of media, including audio, video and images.

Last update: Jan 19, 2010