Search Tips

Basic Search

To enter a query into Search, just type in a few descriptive words and hit the 'enter' key (or click on the 'Go!' Search button) for a list of relevant web pages.

Search uses sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. For instance, when Search analyzes a page, it looks at those pages linking to that page have to say about it. Search also assigns higher relevance to pages in which your query terms appear near each other.


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.

For example, to plan a vacation to Donegal, simply type



To restrict a search further, just include more terms.


"OR" Searches

Search supports the logical "OR" operator. To retrieve pages that include either word A or word B, use an uppercase OR between terms.

For example, to search for a vacation in either Donegal or Paris, just type




Stop Words

Search ignores common words and characters, known as stop words, as they tend to slow down searches without improving the quality of the results. These terms such as "where" and "how", as well as certain single digits and single letters, are not included in searches unless you indicate that they are essential.

You can do this by using the "+" sign in front of the term. Be sure to include a space before the "+" sign, which can also be used in phrase searches.

For example, to search for Star Wars, Episode I use:




See your search terms in context

Each search result contains at least one excerpt from the found web page, which shows how your search terms are used in context on that page. Your search terms are bolded so you can tell at a glance whether the result is a page you want to visit.


Stemming

To provide the most accurate results, Search does not use "stemming" or support "wildcard" searches. In other words, we search for exactly the words that you enter in the search box. If in doubt, try both forms: "airline" and "airlines," for instance.


Does capitalisation matter?

Searches are not case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case. For example, searches for "the phoenix park", "The Phoenix Park", and "ThE PhOeNiX PaRk" will all return the same results.


General Tips

Since Search will 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.


Excluding Words

You can exclude a word from your search by putting a minus sign ("-") immediately in front of the term you want to avoid. (Be sure to include a space before the minus sign.)

For example, the search

will return pages about bass that do not contain the word "music".


Phrase Searches

You can search for phrases by adding quotation marks. Words enclosed in double quotes ("like this") will appear together in all returned documents exactly as you have entered them. Phrase searches using quotation marks are useful when searching for famous sayings or specific names.

Certain characters serve as phrase connectors. Search recognizes hyphens, slashes, periods, equal signs, and apostrophes as phrase connectors. Phrase connectors work like quotes; for example, mother-in-law is treated as a phrase even if the three words aren't in quotes.


Search By Category

The Directory provides a convenient way to refine your search based on a particular topic. For example, searching for "Saturn" within the Science > Astronomy category of the directory returns only pages about Saturn the planet. It does not return pages about Saturn the car, Saturn the game system, or any other meanings of the term. Searching within a category of interest allows you to quickly narrow in on only the most relevant pages to you.


Domain Restrict

Some words, when followed by a colon, have special meaning to Search. One such word is the "site:" operator. To search a specific domain or site, use the "site:sampledomain.com" syntax in the search box.

For example, to find information on cars within IOL.ie's site, enter:




Advanced Search

Often, simply adding more words to a broad query can help narrow it until you find what you want. However, Search also provides a variety of search features that let you