Search Methods

WebSTAR Search supports a number of different methods for performing searches.

Description Search

Simply describe the information that you want. For example, "Web server performance enhancements."

Question Search

Ask a question that you want answered. For example, "How do I increase the performance of my Web server?"

Keyword Search

List important keywords relevant to your search topic. For example, "enhance improve performance server web"

Boolean Keyword Search

Refine a keyword search using boolean operators.

Symbol	Meaning	Action
&	AND	Finds only documents containing all of the specific words or phrases. For example, "performance & server" finds documents with both the word "performance" and the word "server".
|	OR	Finds documents containing at least one of the specified words or phrases. For example, "performance | server" finds documents containing either "performance" or "server". The found documents could contain both, but do not have to.
!	AND NOT	Excludes documents containing the specific word or phrase. For example, "performance ! server" finds documents containing "performance" but not containing "server". As with the & and | operators, ! must appear between two terms.
[ ]	Grouping	Used to group portions of boolean queries together for more complicated queries. For example, "performance & [improve | increase] ! Microsoft" finds documents containing "performance" and either "improve" or "increase but not "Microsoft".

Similar Document Search

After you perform an initial search, every matching document description will contain a "More like this" link that allows you to automatically search for similar documents.