| Some basic tips to help you maximize the effectiveness of your search: |
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| Choosing search terms |
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Choosing the right search terms is the key to finding the information you need.
Start with the obvious – if you're looking for general information on Hongkong, try Hongkong .
But it's often advisable to use multiple search terms; if you're planning a Hongkong vacation, you'll do better with vacation Hongkong than with either vacation or Hongkong by themselves. And vacation Hongkong golf may produce even better (or, depending on your perspective, worse) results. |
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| Capitalization |
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Searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case. For example, searches for george washington, George Washington, and gEoRgE wAsHiNgToN will all return the same results. |
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| Automatic "and" queries |
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By default, only returns pages that include all of your search terms. There is no need to include "and" between terms. Keep in mind that the order in which the terms are typed will affect the search results. To restrict a search further, just include more terms. For example, to plan a vacation to Hongkong, simply type vacation hongkong. |
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| Automatic exclusion of common words |
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The search ignores common words and characters such as "where" and "how", as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results.
If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a "+" sign in front of it. (Be sure to include a space before the "+" sign.) |
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| Phrase searches |
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Sometimes you'll only want results that include an exact phrase. In this case, simply put quotation marks around your search terms.
Phrase searches are particularly effective if you're searching for proper names ("George Washington"), lyrics ("the long and winding road"), or other famous phrases ("This was their finest hour"). |
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