Search Tips & Advanced Search Options

Basic Search

Enter a word or phrase into the search box, then press the search button. By default, the results will only contain pages which match ALL of your search terms.

Capitalization
Case of search keywords does not affect the search results. For instance, sKIn is the same as sKIn, skin, sKin, SKIN.
ALL keywords vs. ANY keyword
By default, ALL search terms entered must appear in a search results page. To find pages that contain any one or more of the keywords, check the "Search for results containing any of the search terms" box.
Exclusion of noise, common words
Prepositions, articles, conjunctions, and other short and common words are excluded from keyword searches (unless enclosed by double-quotes) since they can potentially yield a lot of irrelevant results.
Exact phrase search
If it is important to find all the keywords in the order they were entered (including noise words and punctuation), enclose query text in double-quotation marks.
Special characters
Avoid using special characters, symbols, and punctuation in searches unless necessary (e.g. if searching for AT&T). Certain characters have special meanings, while others can decrease the accuracy of results.
Find synonymous, related, or similar words
By checking the "Find synonymous, related, or similar words" checkbox, your query will expand to search for words similar or synonymous to those entered in the search box (e.g. searching for dictionary will also find pages with glossary, vocabulary, reference).
Exclude keywords from search
By typing a hyphen (-) in front of keyword(s) (or entering word(s) in the "Without this" field in "Advanced Search"), the search results will NOT contain the flagged search terms (e.g. tobacco usage -children). Excluding search terms can be done only if searching for other search terms (i.e. CANNOT search only for -children).
Wildcards searches (*) for word/phrase patterns
When unsure of a word exact spelling or know part of a phrase, use an asterisk to match the part of a word, or to fill in the phrase. For example:
- colo* finds colon, colorectal, colorado.
- John * Smith finds John W. Smith , John Robert Smith.

Advanced Search Settings

Switching to "Advanced Search" enables a few advanced settings (see below). These settings will be turned off and reset to the default, once the "Advanced Search" mode is exited. Note: no searching occurs when switching modes.

Results Order Criteria

The search function uses these criteria to guess which results pages are most likely of interest to you. Pages that score highly according to the criteria are displayed closer to the top of the list than pages that don't. In addition, you can assign importance to each criterion. Pages that score highly for criteria more important to you rank higher than pages that score well for less important criteria. Setting a importance to 'off' prevents the criterion from affecting the order of results.

Criterion	Results page score well (better if more importance is assigned to a criterion) if:
Order of keywords	Search terms appear in the order entered, even if other words appear between the terms. (More on this on Webinator's manual pages.)
Proximity of keywords to each other	Search terms appear closer to one another. (See the Proximity of Keywords option; also more on this on Webinator's manual pages)
Frequency of keywords on a page	There are more occurrences of the search terms on a page. (More on this on Webinator's manual pages.)
Proximity keywords to top of the page	Search terms occur closer to top of the the page. (More on this on Webinator's manual pages.)
Frequency keywords in entire site	Search terms are rare throughout the entire site. (This criterion aims at placing more importance on rare words, which yield more specific results.) (More on this on Webinator's manual pages.)

Forms of Keywords

This option allows you to include variations of keywords in your search results. Options include:

Exact matches means only the exact keywords included, no variations.
Plurals and possessives also searches on instances of keyword + s or keyword + 's.
Any word forms includes plurals, possessives, verb tenses, noun forms of verbs, comparative and superlative forms, and more. (e.g., adjust will find adjusts, adjusted, adjusting, adjustment, etc.)

See more information on this option on Webinator's manual pages.

Proximity of Keywords

Requires ALL of the search keywords to appear within the specified range. Ranges include: entire page (default), same paragraph, same sentence, or same line.

See more information on this option on Webinator's manual pages.