SEARCH
HELP
This Section is designed to give you tips for getting the
best results from our Search Engine. If you need help in any other
areas, please visit our Main Help Center.
The Search Results Display
Search results are displayed in up to four different sections:
- Official Web Sites: Sites that most closely match your
search term.
- Netcenter Pages: Tools, services and premium content that
most closely match your search term. These results link to content
within Netscape Netcenter.
- Web Site Categories: Groups of reviewed web sites related
to your search term. These results link to categories within the
SearchingWeb Directory
- Reviewed Web Sites: Hand-selected web sites that have been
reviewed and categorized by a team of editors.
Note that if no results are found in a particular section, that
section won't appear. If no results are found within any of the four
sections, an Internet search will be conducted through Google.
How to Search
To perform a search, simply enter the terms you are searching for and
click on the "Search" button. For example, a search on
C++
will return all the sites that have the word C++ in them. Searches
with multiple terms will automatically insert an "and" between
all the terms, so that only sites with all of the search words in them
will be returned. For example, a search on
golf clubs
will return sites that have both golf and clubs in the site's
name and description. Sites on "tennis clubs" or "golf
balls" will not be displayed (unless they also mention golf and
clubs). If no sites are found that contain both terms, sites that
contain either term will be displayed.
Phrase Search
Sometimes the order of the search terms matters. Using phrase searching
can greatly reduce the number of sites that are matched by a search. For
example, if you searched for
"Tour de France"
You would get only sites containing all three words "tour",
"de", and "France" - in that order.
Search Defaults
All searches use and as the default linking operator between all
of the search terms. Thus, searching for
red herring
is the same as searching for
red and herring
For both of these searches, only those sites with "red" and
"herring" in the site name or description will be returned.
Sites that mention only "red" but not "herring" will
not be displayed. To get sites containing either "red" or
"herring" use the keyword or. See the next section on
using Boolean operators.
Boolean Searches
There are several Boolean operators to choose from: or, and,
and andnot. Terms linked by the and operator will return
only those sites that match all the search terms linked by the and
operator. The default is and. If you don't use any Boolean
operators, only those sites that contain at least one occurrence of each
search term will be returned.
Terms linked by the or operator will return those sites that
match any of the search terms linked by or. For example,
grey or gray and parrot
Terms linked by the andnot operator will exclude all sites
that match the search term following the andnot. For example,
random andnot house
will find sites about randomness but exclude sites about the
publisher Random House.
Wildcard Search
Netscape Search allows limited use of wildcards in searches. This is
useful when you are trying to match a term that may or may not be plural
or might use one of several verb tenses. For example, if you wanted to
find sites that had to do with bicycling you might use the following
search:
bicycl*
This would match sites on bicycling, bicycle, and bicycles.
Netscape Search search does not support arbitrary wildcards, so
searches on "*cycling" or "arch*ology" will not
work.
Shorthand Search Terms
You can prefix search terms with "-" and "+"
to force the exclusion or inclusion of that term. This is really just
shorthand for using the andnot and and Boolean operators.
The following example will return all the sites on baseball except
those that mention "umpire."
+baseball -umpire
Note: You cannot begin a search with a "-" term. You must
put some other search term first.
Complex Searches
You can mix and match the above search methods to create very complex
searches. This search will return all sites on Lego trains, but exclude
all the links that mention Duplo:
lego train* andnot duplo
This search will find references to racing, except those that are
about racing cars or motorcycles:
racing -auto -car -motorcycle -road -nascar
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