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Search Engines in Detail

AltaVista Advanced
ALTAVISTA'S Advanced search allows you to construct more precise searches than any other search engine.  Unfortunately, the latest version of the search screen can be confusing.  Resist the temptation to fill out every blank!   Use the search strategies given below in the Boolean expression box and leave everything else alone for most purposes.  This allows you to make full use of AltaVista's capabilities.   Please note that AltaVista is the only search engine that uses the "near" command.   This command finds words or phrases close together, within five words of each other rather than scattered over a page.   This helps ensure the accuracy of some searches.



Detail of screen.

The Sorted by box is used in addition to the Boolean expression box if desired.  Typing a word or phrase into this box brings pages containing the word or phrase to the top of your list of results.  Try typing in one or more of the terms used in your search. This is an optional feature and may be left blank.
Location lets you restrict your search to a specific domain (com, edu, gov, net).
The Date feature restricts your search to Web pages last modified during the span of time you specify.  It does not allow you to search for dates that relate to your subject and therefore is of limited use.  Try entering a date as a search term instead.
Under Display, leave site collapse on.   This condenses multiple results from single Web sites into groups which can help make your result list a bit more manageable.
Here is AltaVista's own documentation for the advanced search.

Search Examples
Alaska
[Use capitalization where appropriate.]

"noise pollution"
[Enclose phrases in quotation marks.]

"Alfred Hitchcock" and symbolism
[Use and to combine different terms.]

"crop circles" near hoax
[Finds the two words or phrases within five words of each other.]

("capital punishment" or "death penalty") and statistics
[Use parentheses when building more complex search statements.]

dinosaurs and not Barney
[Use and not to exclude a term.]

lesbian* and literature
[Wildcard symbol is *–finds lesbian, lesbianism, or lesbians.]

wom*n and "date rape"
[Finds woman or women.]

title:"Jane Austin" and url:edu
[Searches only Web page titles from educational sites.]

"bird of paradise" and not (plant* or flower*)

Sample Record



Click on the Web site title to go to it.  Click on Translate if the page is in a foreign language, but be aware that such translations are machine-generated and imprecise.  Click on Related pages to find sites like the one you are viewing.

Lesson Five continues on the next page.