Search Engine Functionality

Boolean Queries Tips & Techniques

Boolean Queries: are like a math problem from left to right and the most important information is located in the front of the search.

5 Major Commands That All Search Engines Support:

1. site:  (looks for item in whole website)

Examples:

• Site:www.python.org software=engineer
• Site:www.python.org J2EE

2. intitle:  (finds pages with item in the title)

3. inurl:  (looks for the keyword in a url address)

Examples:

• (inurl:python OR intitle:python) J2EE
• (inurl:resume OR intitle:resume) J2EE python
• (inurl:Java OR intitle:Java) site:www.python.org (With this search you can substitute in the words: people, awards or members where the keyword Java is.)

4. link:   (looks for item link in a web page. MSN search handles this command the best.)

5. intext: (or in body) searches for a particular item in the body or text of the website or document.

Example:

• intext:J2EE (inurl:resume OR intitle:resume)

Commands Specific to Major Search Engine

GOOGLE.COM

related:    (will find similar pages. This command is helpful when building a target list of companies from where you would like to find candidates.)

define:     (will define the word i.e. Webster Dictionary)

numrange:  #..# Example: numrange:60540..60567

date: 3    (3 months , 6 months , 12 months can only search as far back as)

daterange:  2453777    2453787  (is based off of the Julian calendar)

~ tells google it is a fuzzy search will look for similar words i.e. resume or CV etc…

word =*= word is the Wild Card i.e. Software =*= Engineer will look for first and last word with any other word in-between the title.

rphonebook:  (is the search term for residential phone book)

bphonebook:  (is the search term for business phone book)

local.google.com (finds local locations while you are searching great for phone numbers and business & title look ups)

Examples:

• 60540..60567 .NET software engineer resume
• Software=engineer .NET ~CV 60540..60567 daterange:2453777-2453787 (Finds resumes indexed within the last thirty days. You can replace CV with resume.)

FYI: Place your most important keywords closest to the beginning of your search string for optimal search result ranking.

YAHOO.COM

Area code 435 = what location search

Zip code 30071 = what city search

Example:

• zip codes Naperville (will bring up all the zipcodes for Naperville, IL)

Hostname: Similar to linkdomain, but not as effective as linkdomain using MSN Search.

Example:

• Hostname:www.cisco.com

MSN.COM

Link (search for pages or reference some other page) link:www.cisco.com resume 262

Linkdomain: Finds all pages that link to pages within this website’s domain, not simply just the domain.

Example:

• Linkdomain:www.oracle.com J2EE resume

Contains: pdf, doc, xls, txt, ppt, etc... can use this multiple time i.e. (contains:pdf OR contains:txt)

Examples:

• Linkdomain:www.python.org contains:pdf resume
• Linkdomain:www.python.org (contains:pdf OR contains:doc OR contains:txt) resume

Inbody:resume (this search technique is used to search for skill in plain text somewhere on the page)

Examples:

• Linkdomain:www.python.org (contains:pdf OR contains:doc OR contains:txt) inbody: resume
• Linkdomain:www.python.org (contains:pdf OR contains:doc OR contains:txt) inbody:J2EE resume

Language: en, es, etc….

Examples:

• Linkdomain:www.python.org (contains:pdf OR contains:doc OR contains:txt) inbody:J2EE resume language:en
• Linkdomain:www.python.org (contains:pdf OR contains:doc OR contains:txt) inbody:J2EE resume spanish language:en

Prefer: resume  (using this will resort or rearrange the key words in your search and rank pages with the keyword after “prefer:” higher in your search results)

Example:

• Linkdomain:www.python.org (contains:pdf OR contains:doc OR contains:txt) inbody:J2EE prefer:resume

Loc:US or location:us(will only pick up searches in the US location)

Example:

• Inbody:J2EE prefer:resume loc:us (substitute us for sp and you’ll find pages hosted in Spain, for example)

Use MSN Search local (Access it by clicking the Local (BETA) link from the MSN Search page to find candidates in certain geographic areas.

http://local.live.com – Great new Microsoft site for finding a business or address in a particular US location.

http://spaces.msn.com/ - You can sign up for a free online Spaces account and add an RSS feed which will display your MSN Search from your MSN Spaces account to reference when you need to run the search again later.

TEOMA.COM

Last: week or month or year i.e. last:week J2EE resume 312 (will specify date in time. This command will return pages indexed within the last week or month.)

Beforedate:

Afterdate:

Betweendate: 200508, 200512 Returns indexed pages within a date range.

Geoloc:northamerica  (Geography Search)

Lang:English

Example:

• lang:English Oracle resume