Search Tips

At its simplest, a search query can be just a word. But with the tips on this page, you can refine your search to give you more complete results.

• Look for a phrase by typing the whole phrase.
  Example - type sports events to find the exact phrase sports events. Since the search is not case-sensitive, this is equivalent to Sports Events.
• Look for two or more words at once by using the AND operator.
  Example - type sports AND events to find documents that have both the word sports and the word events 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 sports NEAR events to match documents where the word sports is within 50 words of the word events.
• 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 dogs OR puppies to find the word dogs or the word puppies, but not necessarily both.
• Limit your search by using the AND NOT operator to exclude words.
  Example - type surfing AND NOT the Internet to find all instances of surfing, as long as surfing is not followed by the phrase the Internet.
• Use AND, OR, NOT, or NEAR literally by using double quotes.
  Example - type "houses near parks" to find documents with the phrase houses near parks. Without the double quotes, this query would use the NEAR operator instead of the phrase.
• Look for words that begin with the same letters by using a single asterisk (*).
  Example - type key* to find key, keying, keyhole, keyboard, and so on.
• Look for all forms of a word by using a double asterisk (**).
  Example - type fly** to match fly, flew, flown, and flying.
• "+" is a reserved character for Microsoft Site Server.
  Example - type C Programming to find pages with information about C and C++ programming. A search for C++ by itself will yield nothing.

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