Search Tips

• Look for a phrase.
  Example - type landings report to find the exact phrase landings report. Since the search is not case-sensitive, this is equivalent to Landings Report.

• Look for two or more words at once by using the AND operator.
  Example - type landings AND report to find documents that have both the word landings and the word report anywhere.

• Look for words that are close to each other by using the NEAR operator instead of the AND operator. When you use NEAR, the closer together the words are, the higher the rank of the page, so the higher it appears in the list of search results.
  Example - type landings NEAR report to match documents where the word landings is within 50 words of the word report.

• Look for synonyms or similar words by using the OR operator. Note that if you don't use the OR operator and search using multiple words, the words are treated as a phrase.
  Example - type NOAA OR NMFS to find the word NOAA or the word NMFS, but not necessarily both.

• Limit your search by using the AND NOT operator to exclude words.
  Example - type permit AND NOT purchase to find all instances of permit, as long as permit is not followed by the word purchase.

• Use double quotes if you want to use AND, OR, NOT, or NEAR literally.
  Example - type "tuna and sharks" to find documents with the phrase tuna and sharks. Without the double quotes, this query would use the AND operator instead of the phrase.

• Use a single asterisk (*) to look for words that begin with the same letters.
  Example - type tuna* to find tuna, tunas, tunafish, and so on.

• Use a double asterisk (**) to look for all forms of a word.
  Example - type fishery** to match fishery and fisheries.