Alta Vista: Addendum to Help for Advanced Query

Some Real Examples for Advanced Searches

Learning to use the Advance Search in Alta Vista will greatly increase your ability to find relevant material on the WEB. By narrowing down your request you will obtain shorter lists with more relevant material. You will also place less of a strain on Alta Vista server at Digital when you receive shorter lists and don't look inside so many irrelevant articles.

For finding original information and not just personal hot lists one might try to limit to the pages that include the words home OR index in their filenames.
i.e. -- amp; (url:home | url:index)
Previous use might indicate to avoid pages that contain the words cost OR price when looking for free help.
In searching for automobiles one might only be interested in the 1996 model year.

Examples

(title:excel | url:excel) amp; (loop | loops) amp; (vba | visual)
[The use of the word AND instead of the symbol &, and the use of the word OR instead of the symbol |, and the use of the word NOT instead of the symbol ! are equivalent, it just takes more typing.]
(title:excel or url:excel) and (loop or loops) and (vba or visual)
cigarette amp; smoke amp; health amp; url:edu amp; (GASP | ASH | url:ucsf | url:upenn)
url:yahoo amp; Camry
url:yahoo amp; automobiles amp; (1996 | new.cars)
new.cars amp; 1996 amp; prices amp; (rebates | incentives | MSRP | invoice)
(Camry | Honda) amp; models amp; (car | automobile | automobiles) amp; 1996 amp; new MSRP
(title:excel amp; url:excel) amp; free & (url:ca | url:microsoft) & !(telecommunication* | passport | customer) & !(price | prices | cost | student | prerequistes | trainer | video)

sas.technical.report.p.222 amp; !url:pubcat amp; !url:catalogo
new.cars amp; reviews amp; 1996 amp; (Honda | Toyota)
why was this included?--> http://www.toyota.com/antenna/news@SK@MNRNK331gi9@@.html
-- it was interesting, but does not have the words "new" and "cars" together.

Additional benefits

Make up your own hotlist of relevant material.
Do away with the reliance of other people's hotlists by invoking a search beginning at
```
                         \\\|///
                       \\  - -  //
                        (  @ @  )
  --------------------oOOo-(_)-oOOo----------
                     Hang in there!!!!
  ----------------------------Oooo-----------
                     oooO     (   )
                     (   )     ) /
                      \ (     (_/
                       \_)
```
Some Searches that just don't seem to work correctly
- There were 17 hits with following search. Adding results ranking criteria should not affect the number of hits, but should sort the preferred ones first. The results after adding the ranking criteria were that only two hits were found. [Fri Mar 8, 1996]
  sas.technical.report.p.222 amp; !url:pubcat amp; !url:catalogo
  Surprise!!!! see the new Alta Vista Advanced Help. I don't like like it but that is what is how it is now "documented".
Related Material
- Using Google Groups to search MS Excel Newsgroups.
- [Searching the World Wide Web
- Search Page and web references (not related to REXX, not related to Excel).

Some Real Examples for Advanced Searches

Examples

Additional benefits

Some Searches that just don't seem to work correctly

Related Material