Advanced Search Engine Tips

About our search engine: The Pinellas County search engine acts as a "virtual database" indexing tens of thousands of pages, millions of words, sound-alike words, and phrases from numerous domains comprising Pinellas County Government. It searches not only conventional web pages, but also PDF files, Word documents, Powerpoint files and a variety of additional formats.

Although our search engine is configured to be highly intuitive, use the following tips if more specific search results are desired:

• Check spelling
• Use multiple words
• Use similar words
• Use quotation marks
• Use plus (+) or minus (-)
• Use field searches
• Use wildcards

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Check spelling
Make sure your search terms are spelled correctly. We utilize "Sound-Alike Matching" so the search engine will attempt to find words that sound similar to your search terms, but it's always best to try to spell the search terms correctly.

 

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Use multiple words
Using multiple words will return more refined results than a single word. For example, typing our free product will return more relevant results than typing just product. (Keep in mind that relevant results are returned even if they don't contain all query terms.)

Example: our free product

 

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Use similar words
The more similar words you use in a search, the more relevant your results will be.

Example: safe secure privacy security

 

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Use quotation marks
Use quotation marks to find words which must appear adjacent to each other, for example, "our pledge to you." Otherwise, the search results will include the word our, pledge, to, and the word you, but not necessarily in that order. The words may appear anywhere, and in any order, within the document.

Note: if you are using the Advanced Search Form with radio buttons for "any," "all," and "phrase," then quotes can only be used when the "any" radio button is selected. Quotes are ignored if the "all" or "phrase" radio buttons are selected.

Example: "our pledge to you"

 

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Use plus (+) or minus (-)
Use a plus sign when your search term or phrase must appear in the search results. Use a minus sign to indicate undesirable term(s). The plus sign tells the search engine that a certain word or phrase is required in the search results, and a minus sign indicates that a word or phrase must be absent in the search results.

Note: A phrase must be contained within quotation marks. Leave no spaces between the plus or minus sign and the term.

Note: if you are using the Advanced Search Form with radio buttons for "any," "all," and "phrase," then plus and minus can only be used when the "any" radio button is selected. Plus and minus are ignored if the "all" or "phrase" radio buttons are selected.

Example: +"template language"

 

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Use field searches
Field searches allow you to create specific searches for words that appear in a specific part of a document. A field search can be performed on body text (body:), title text (title:), alt text (alt:), meta description (desc:), meta key words (keys:), URL (url:) or meta target key words (target:). The field name should be in lower-case and immediately followed by a colon. There should be no spaces between the colon and the search term.

Note: The field searches can only be followed by a word or phrase. Phrases must be contained within quotation marks.

Note: if you are using the Advanced Search Form with a list box for the field name, then field names can only be entered before a word or phrase when the "any" option is selected. Specific field names are ignored if any other Advanced Search Form field is selected in the list box.

Examples:
title:about
desc:"Our Team"
keys:login
body:security
alt:"join now"
url:help

 

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Use wildcards
Wildcard searches can expand the number of matches for a particular request. The * character is used as the wildcard character.

For instance, searching for wh* will find the words what, why, when, whether, and any other word that starts with wh.
Searching for *her* will find the words here, whether, together, gathering, and any other word that contains her anywhere in the word.

Wildcards may be combined with the standard plus (+) and minus (-) modifiers, quotes for phrases, as well as the field search specifiers.
+wh* -se*ch will find all pages which have a word that starts with wh and which does not contain a word that starts with se and ends with ch.
"wh* are" will find the phrases where are, what are, why are, etc.

Example: Examples:
wh*
"wh* are"
415-*-*

 

 

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