Go to Interpreting
Results
Search Tips
- By default, the search engine returns only pages
that include all of your search terms; there is no need to use "and".
- Searches are NOT case-sensitive; "High Blood
Pressure" is the same as "high blood pressure".
- For "OR" searches: use an uppercase "OR" between
terms, for example, "heart OR sleep".
- For exact matches, use quotes -- for example,
"restless leg syndrome".
- Refining or narrowing your search is as simple as
adding more words to the search terms you have already entered. The refined
query returns a specific subset of the pages that were returned by your
original broad query.
- Exclude words from your search by putting a minus
sign (-) immediately in front of the term you want to exclude. Make sure you
include a space before the minus sign.
Go to Search Tips
Interpreting Results
- Results are ranked by relevance to the search
terms. Common words and characters are excluded.
- Excluded words include most pronouns and
articles, such terms as "where" and "how," and certain single digits and single
letters. These terms rarely help to narrow a search and can slow searching
significantly.
- If you want to use any of these words in your
search, use the plus sign (+) sign immediately in front of the terms you want
to include, or enclose your phrase containing these words in quotation marks.
Make sure that you include a space before the plus sign.
- Page Title: The first line of the result is the
title of the Web page found. Sometimes, instead of a title, there will be a
URL, which indicates that the page has no title.
- Excerpts from the document are included that
include how your search terms are used in context on that page. These are found
just below the title link. Your terms are bolded, so you can tell at a glance
whether the result is a page you want to visit.
- Cached Pages: Clicking on the cached link will
enable you to see the content of the Web page with the search terms
highlighted. This can help you find the relevant part of the document (where
the terms appear) and can help you understand why a particular document was
selected.
- Indented Result: an addional document from the
same directory.
- More Results: If there are more than two
documents from the same directory, the remaining documents are folded behind
this "More results from..."
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