: mySpider Search Help :
Close this window

The mySpider search engine will NOT correct your spelling. So be sure to spell correctly the words you enter.

Searches are not case sensitive. The same results will be returned if you search for cat or Cat or CAT.

Use AND, in upper case or lower case, between words or search terms to refine your search, that is, to limit the number of results returned. Enter cat AND dog if you want to find only those web pages that contain the word cat and the word dog. AND is the default, so if you search for cat dog, results will be returned as if you had entered cat AND dog.

Use OR, in upper or lower case, between words or search terms, to expand the number of results. Searching for cat OR dog will return pages that contain cat, pages that contain dog and pages that contain both words.

Use NOT, in upper or lower case, between words or search terms to reduce the number of results returned. Searching for cat NOT dog will return only those pages that contain the word cat but not the word dog.

Enclose words in double quotation marks to search for a particular phrase. Doing so will reduce the number of results returned. Searching for "big bird" will return pages that contain only that phrase. Pages that contain the word big or the word bird but not that exact phrase will not be returned.

You can enter several quoted phrases and single words separated by the Boolean logical operators AND, OR, NOT. Searching for "big bird" OR cat NOT dog, will return pages that contain the phrase "big bird" and pages that contain the word cat without the word dog. It will also return pages, if there are any, that contain both "big bird" and cat without dog. You'll get those results because the NOT operator is processed before the OR operator. The precedence of the logical operators is usually NOT, AND then OR. But you can't always be sure.

By using parentheses, you can determine how your query will be processed.

The query "big bird" OR (cat NOT dog) would return any pages that might contain "big bird" and dog. The word dog has only been excluded from the pages with cat. The query ("big bird" OR cat) NOT dog would return pages that contain "big bird" or cat, or both, but never any pages with dog. You can even use nested parentheses as follows: (("big bird" OR (cat AND mouse)) NOT dog. Inner most parentheses are processed first.

If you want to search for pages that contain a specific word that is surrounded by parentheses, enclose the word and its parentheses in double quotes: "(bird)".

Does mySpider Use Stemming? To provide the most accurate results, mySpider does not use "stemming" or support "wildcard" searches. Rather, mySpider searches for exactly the words that you enter into the search box. For example, searching for "airlin" or "airlin*" will not yield "airline" or "airlines.". If in doubt, try both forms, for example search for: airline OR airlines.
Close this window