Syfy

The Basics of Search

To enter a query, type in a few descriptive words and press Enter (or click the Search button) for a list of relevant web pages. Since search only returns web pages that contain all the words in your query, refining or narrowing your search is as simple as adding more words to the search terms you have already entered. Your new query will return a smaller subset of the pages found for your original "too-broad" query.

Choosing Keywords

For best results, it's important to choose your keywords wisely. Keep these tips in mind:

• Try the obvious first. If you're looking for information on Picasso, enter "Picasso" rather than "painters".
  
  
• Use words likely to appear on a site with the information you want. "Luxury hotel dubuque" gets better results than "really nice places to spend the night in Dubuque".
  
  
• Make keywords as specific as possible. "Antique lead soldiers" gets more relevant results than "old metal toys".

Automatic "and" Queries

By default, search only returns pages that include all of your search terms. There is no need to include "and" between terms. Keep in mind that the order in which the terms are typed will affect the search results. To restrict a search further, just include more terms.

Automatic Exclusion of Common Words

Search ignores common words and characters such as "where" and "how", as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results.

If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a "+" sign in front of it. (Be sure to include a space before the "+" sign.)

Another method for doing this is conducting a phrase search, which means putting quotation marks around two or more words. Common words in a phrase search (e.g., "where are you") are included in the search.

Capitalization

Searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case. For example, searches for "george washington", "George Washington", and "gEoRgE wAsHiNgToN" will all return the same results.

Word Variations (Stemming)

To provide the most accurate results, search does not use "stemming" or support "wildcard" searches. Searching for "book" or "book*" will not yield "books" or "bookstore". If in doubt, try both forms: "airline" and "airlines," for instance.