Constructing Your Search Request - Using Advanced Search Features

There are too many different search engines for us to discuss each one in depth separately. They are constantly introducing new features and making changes in an effort to attract users and better cover the Internet. It is helpful to read any search help that may be given at a particular search site. Suggestions for learning more about these tools are given in the Resources for Further Study section at the end of this tutorial.

In this section, we note a few helpful advanced searching features available in many search engines: word location or field searching and media/image searching. Be sure to check the help section or the advanced search form for the search engine you are using to see if a similar function is available.

Word Location / Field Searching

Many search engines allow you to search for words that appear in a specific section of an Internet document. This feature can be helpful, for example, if you know part of the title or url (Internet address) of a site you wish to visit. Another example would be if you wanted to limit your results to a particular domain or "type" of site (e.g. commercial, government, military, etc.). This type of search limit may be accomplished with the use of a search prefix or by using the menu options in an advanced search form.

• Title

Example: title:Titanic
Tells the computer you want it to find Internet sites or documents with the word "Titanic" in the title. A title search can help filter out irrelevant items that may mention your keyword out of context somewhere in the body of the document. Note: some engines use the prefix t: ; others offer an advanced search form with a menu of location choices including the option, "title of page".

• URL

Example: url:biodiversity
Tells the computer to find Internet sites with the word "biodiversity" in the URL or Internet address. This would be helpful in cases where you remembered part of a URL but didn't know the entire address. An advanced search form may offer "URL of page" as the specified location for the search word.

• Domain

Example: domain:gov
This type of search would be especially useful in combination with another keyword or field search. For example, title:International Space Station and domain:gov would tell the computer to find government sites with "International Space Station" in the title of the site or document. Typical domains used in Internet URLs are: com (commercial), gov (government), edu (educational), mil (military), org (organizations), and net (network).

Media Type/Image Searches

Since the Internet is so rich in images, it is sometimes useful to be able to search for an image as opposed to a text document. Look for an advanced search form that lets you limit your search to retrieve images or specific media types. Here are some examples:

• Image

Example: image:Jupiter
Finds images with the word "Jupiter" in the name of the image (e.g. Jupiter.gif or Jupiter.jpg). Would be helpful to use this search in combination to be even more precise, e.g. image:Jupiter and planets.

• Media Type

In Hotbot (http://www.hotbot.com), go to the "Advanced Search" option. Here you can specify a topic as well as various media types (e.g. Java, video, audio) that should be included in your search.

Other Search Limits

Many engines allow limiting by date (when the page was last updated) and by language. These features, if available, can be found in an advanced search form.

Looking at Your Search Results

All search engines and directories will provide a list of Internet resources that match your search query. In the next section, we will look at how you can interpret the information given and modify your search request.