OpenFran Search Engine Tips

One of the most amazing features of OpenFran is the ability for you to quickly and easily locate information contained within thousands of documents.The key to utilizing this powerful tool in the most efficient manner is by learning a few simple tips. Take a moment to review the simple suggestions and you'll be an OpenFran power user in no time.

NOTE: Results are usually listed in order of relevancy based on keywords and other factors.

Advanced Search Features

If you know exactly what you want, you can get better results by entering very specific information into the Search box.

Searching for an Exact Phrase

To require that an entire phrase be found in a search, enter quotes (" ") around the terms. For example, "dog grooming" returns listings where the words "dog" and "grooming" appear together and in that order.

Searching For Required Words

You can type the plus sign (+) or the word AND before a word to require that it be found in all of the search results. For example, dog +grooming (include a space between the first word and the + symbol) or dog AND grooming returns all listings that contain "dog" and "grooming" but not necessarily together.

Searching For Excluded Words

Use the minus sign (-) before a word or the word NOT to require that it not be found in the search results. For example, dog -grooming (include a space between the first word and the - symbol) or grooming NOT dog lists documents containing "grooming" but not "dogs."

Searching For Multiple Words

Use the word OR to require that one or the other term be found in the search results. For example, dog OR grooming (include a space on each side of the OR) lists sites containing "dog" or "grooming." You can combine AND, OR, AND NOT by using parentheses. For example, to find documents that contain the word grooming but not either the word cats or dogs type grooming NOT (cats OR dogs). You could also type this grooming -(cats OR dogs). Note: You cannot begin a search with a "-" term. You must put some other search term first.

Using Wildcards

You can use the asterisk (*) character to indicate a wildcard search. This is useful when you are trying to match a term that may or may not be plural or might use one of several verb tenses. For example franchi* will find results containing words that begin with 'franchi' (e.g. franchise, franchisee, franchisor). You must have at least four non-wildcard characters in a word before you introduce a wildcard. This is not necessary for plurals because a search on dog will also return results containing the word dog, and a search on dogs will return results containing the word dog.

The asterisk (*) is used to replace multiple characters and the percent (%) symbol is used to replace only one character. For example psych*ist will find all results which contain words that begin and end with 'psych' and 'ist' (e.g. psychologist, psychiatrist), and gene%logy will return sites containing words beginning with 'gene' and ending with 'logy,' separated by a single letter (e.g. genealogy and geneology) which is useful for commonly misspelled words. You can also use multiple wildcards within a single word.

If you wish to get really crazy...

Bracketed expressions

You can control the precedence of the boolean operators using brackets. In the query one OR two AND three the AND takes precedence, so this is the same as one OR (two AND three). You can override the precedence using (one OR two) AND three.

NEAR

one NEAR two NEAR three matches documents containing those words within 10 words of each other. You can set the threshold to n by using NEAR/n like so: one NEAR/6 two.

ADJ

ADJ is like NEAR but only matches if the words appear in the same order as in the query. So one ADJ two ADJ three matches documents containing those three words in that order and within 10 words of each other. You can set the threshold to n by using ADJ/n like so: one ADJ/6 two.

Searching for proper names

If a query term is entered with a capitalised first letter, then it will be searched for unstemmed.

Range searches

The QueryParser can be configured to support range-searching using document values. The syntax for a range search is start..end - for example, 01/03/2007..04/04/2007, $10..100, 5..10kg.