At its simplest, a query can be just a word or a phrase. But with the tips on this page, you can expand the focus of your query to give you more complete results. These tips will get you started with basic query language.

• Look for words with the same prefix. For example, in your query form type key* to find key, keying, keyhole, keyboard, and so on.

• Search for all forms of a word. For example, in the form type sink** to find sink, sinking, sank, and sunk.

• Use the keyword AND to refine your search. For example, a search for water will return all documents containing the word water. But the search for water AND resources will return only documents containing both water and resources. The keyword AND may be upper or lower case.

• Search with the keyword NEAR, rather than AND, for words close to each other. For example, both of these queries, water and resources and water near resources, look for the words water and resources on the same page. But with NEAR, the returned pages are ranked in order of proximity: The closer together the words are, the higher the rank of that page. The keywords may be upper or lower case.

• Refine your queries with the AND NOT keywords to exclude certain text from your search. For example, if you want to find all instances of surfing but not the Net, write the following query:
   
    surfing AND NOT the Net


 

• Add the OR keyword to find all instances of either one word or another, for example:
   
    water or resources
   
  This query finds all pages that mention water or resources or both.
• Put quotation marks around keywords to search for an exact phrase. For instance, if you type the following query:
   
    "water near resources"
   
  Index Server will literally look for the complete phrase water near resources. But if you type the same query without the quotation marks:
   
    water near resources
   
  Index Server searches all documents for the words water and resources.