|
There tons of others out there as well. Note that some engines like www.freeware.com are pretty nice because they focus only on links to download programs (mostly shareware or demos). They might not have everything, but they do come close.
Notes about Priority |
The excite search and many others put high priority on title and url, though matching either one does not guarantee that the match will reach the top of the results listing. For example, I once searched for my url by typing in the exact title, and someone else's site came on top. Mine was usually around the third (varied through time). Without giving a real long explanation of why this is (there are more reasons than the obvious), keep this in mind. On the other hand, if you go through pages of results without luck, you might want to retry your search with different words.
Basic Rules and Syntax for Excite |
Plus + |
Placing an addition symbol in front of a search word makes that word mandatory (in exact spelling and form). So, if you search for +economy +food, the results must contain both economy and food.
+economy food will require the word economy and merely make food a regular search word.
Note that this addition symbol does not allow variations in spelling. For example, +economy will not give results for sites with only economics. So, you must both spell the word completely and correctly (and in the form that you want).
Minus - |
This symbol has the opposite effect of an addition symbol. For example, if you are searching for Laika but not the first dog in space (named Laika), you can try Laika -dog
Quotes " |
Everything surrounded in quotes must appear in that order with words adjacent to one another. For example: "news archive" is more specific than +news +archive, because without quotes you could get a page about the evening news along with an article on library archives. For some search engines if you capitalize a phrase it is considered the same as if it were in quotes. For example, "The United States of America" is the same with or without quotes to some engines.
Boolean Operators for Excite |
Boolean operators must be CAPITALIZED.
AND |
Place this word between two search words to require both of them. Pretty similar to the plus option. In other words, economy AND food AND money is the same thing as +economy +food +money.
AND NOT |
The word following the AND NOT can't be in the result. This is basically the same thing as the minus.
OR |
Gives you one or the other (or even both). For example, you can try economy OR economics. This is so you won't have to narrow your search and possibly eliminate a legitimate result.
Parenthesis |
Lastly, you can use these boolean operators with parentheses. For example, you can try:
(economy OR economics) AND food AND money
Actual Examples |
Example 1 |
Example 1: To respond to someone's post, I searched for a FLmask download site. They wanted Win95, and I happened to know it would be called FLmask32. So, I tried flmask32 AND download.
I skimmed the results and got to the page on the first try.
Example 2 |
Example 2: I was looking for a model named Vivian Hsu, so I typed "Vivian Hsu AND gallery". The quotes are important so that I don't get a site about two people named Vivian Chow and David Hsu, for example. Even though the 'AND' limited my search, I wasn't too concerned about visiting every single Vivian site (there are a ton out there).
-Ramses
I write these FAQs in hopes it will benefit and educate you, so as always, feel free to correct me and add your own suggestions. You may remain anonymous or allow me to credit you with the suggestion (I will assume the former but definitely feel free to volunteer the use of your nick in the credits of the FAQ)
