AltaVista

AltaVista is a Web/Usenet search engine. You can use it freely to search for Web pages, documents, newsgroup articles, etc., that contain words or phrases you specify. To reach AltaVista, point your browser to this address:

http://www.altavista.digital.com

AltaVista offers two kinds of queries, simple and advanced.

The basic search features are available in both query types. Advanced queries offer a few extra features, which you may not need.

  Simple queries

  Advanced queries

This online Help system is copyright © 1996 Philip Casella (how2@best.com).
AltaVista is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation. (At least I assume it is; they didn’t respond to my requests for information about their copyright statement preferences.)


Using basic queries
Simple queries

When you reach the AltaVista site, these options should be on the page you see first*:

For the simplest of simple queries, click in the long skinny text box (to the left of “Submit”), type one or more words, and click Submit. AltaVista finds and lists all web pages containing any of the words you typed. Pages that contain the most of them are listed first.

To search newsgroups, click open the drop-down list that shows “the Web” and select “Usenet.”

For more or less detail in the list of documents found, select from the drop-down list that now says “in Standard Form.”

 Simple query search options

  Advanced queries

*If you somehow get to the advanced query page, which is more complicated, just click on the “Simple” icon there to display this page.


Simple Queries
Search options (simple queries)

The most useful search options are. . .

•	grouping words as phrases

•	using multiple terms and controlling which must be present in or absent from documents found.

Other options? You can use the wildcard character to represent missing characters or restrict your search with special prefixes.

Searching for phrases   Requiring or excluding terms   Using the * wildcard notation   Constraining a search with prefixes	See also   About punctuation   Using upper- and lowercase


Searching for phrases

In an AltaVista search, a phrase is two or more words that you want to be together, in the same order, in any documents returned. For example:

buffalo chips

New World Order

To search for words as phrases, surround them with double quotation marks in the text box. You can combine words and phrases in the same search:

“Metropolitan Transit Authority” MTA

Requiring or excluding terms   Using the * wildcard notation   Constraining a search with prefixes	See also   About punctuation   Using upper- and lowercase


Requiring words/phrases to be present or absent
Requiring or excluding terms

By default, AltaVista finds all documents that contain any of the words or phrases you type in the text box, and lists first those that contain the most of them.

To specify a word or phrase that must be in documents found, precede it with a plus sign (+).

To specify a word or phrase that must not be in the documents found, precede it with a minus sign (-).

Examples:

+banana +fruit -slug  (AltaVista finds documents that contain "banana and fruit," but none that contain “slug”)

Venus Mars Neptune +mythology -planet  (AltaVista finds documents that contain any of these deities’ names, but only if they include the word “mythology” and not the word "planet")

Using the * wildcard notation   Constraining a search with prefixes   Searching for phrases	See also   About punctuation   Using upper- and lowercase


wildcard notation; asterisk (wildcard); star (wildcard); ambiguous spellings, searching for; multiple forms, searching for
Using the * wildcard notation

To search for multiple forms of a word, or if you are not sure of the exact spelling, use the wildcard character, the asterisk: * (called “star” in this context).

The wildcard character stands for any 0-5 characters within a word. Examples:

comput* searches for “computer,” “computers,” “computing,” “computation,”etc., but not  “computational” (7 characters)

Constraining a search with prefixes   Searching for phrases   Requiring or excluding terms	See also   About punctuation   Using upper- and lowercase


Constraining the search with prefixes
Constraining a search with prefixes

In addition to specifying what to look for, you can also tell  AltaVista where to look. To do this, type, as part of the search term, a keyword prefix, followed by a colon and appropriate text.

AltaVista has keyword prefixes for both Web and Newsgroup searches. This table summarizes the web search keyword prefixes currently available.

Web search prefixes

anchor:hyperlink text Searches hyperlink text applet: applet class name text Searches names of Java applet classes  host:host name text Searches Web server host names image:image name text Searches Web page image names	link:URL text Searches text of links to other web pages text:text visible on page Searches normal page text, i.e., not host names, hyperlinks, etc.  title:page title text Searches Web page titles url:URL text Searches Web page URLs.
Newsgroup search keyword prefixes   Searching for phrases   Requiring or excluding terms   Using the * wildcard notation	See also   About punctuation   Using upper- and lowercase


Newsgroup search prefixes
Constraining a search with prefixes

In addition to specifying what to look for, you can also tell  AltaVista where to look. To do this, type, as part of the search term, a keyword prefix, followed by a colon and appropriate text.

AltaVista has keyword prefixes for both Web and Newsgroup searches. This table summarizes the Newsgroup search keyword prefixes currently available.

Newsgroup search prefixes

from:”From:” field text Searches text of newsroup article “From:” fields subject:”Subject:” field text Searches text of newsroup article “Subject:” fields	newsgroups:newsgroup name text Searches articles in newsgroup(s) specified summary:article summary text Searches text of newsroup article summaries keywords:keyword list text Searches text of newsroup article keyword lists
Web search keyword prefixes   Searching for phrases   Requiring or excluding terms   Using the * wildcard notation	See also   About punctuation   Using upper- and lowercase


About punctuation

AltaVista ignores punctuation, except that it considers words separated by punctuation marks (rather than spaces) to be phrases. That is, punctuation marks group together words into a phrase, just like surrounding them with quotation marks.

Therefore, these search terms are identical:

now.is.the.time	=	“now is the time”

U.S.A	=	“U S A”

Thompson’s Gazelle 	=	“Thompson s” Gazelle

Note that this doesn’t mean you can’t find terms with punctuation in documents. AltaVista sees them the same way when it’s searching. It just means you can’t distinguish between “can’t” and, say, “can:t” – not usually a problem.

Using the * wildcard notation    Searching for phrases   Requiring or excluding terms   Web search keyword prefixes	See also   Using upper- and lowercase


Using upper- and lowercase

Typing words in lowercase tells AltaVista to ignore case, and consider any and all combinations of upper- and lowercase in its search.

mash finds “mash,” “Mash,” “MASH,” etc.

Typing even one character of a word in uppercase restricts a search to that exact “case configuration.”

PEN finds “PEN” but not “pen,” “Pen,” etc.

Note that the same applies to accented characters:

Resume finds “Resume” and “Resumé,” but

Resumé won’t find “Resume”

Using the * wildcard notation    Searching for phrases   Requiring or excluding terms   Web search keyword prefixes	See also   About punctuation


About advanced queries

Before you start

You should learn about simple queries before advanced queries. You won’t need to use an advanced query unless you want to. . .

•	specify that search terms be NEAR each other (i.e., within ten words).

•	construct complicated queries using parentheses and logical operators (AND, NOT, OR).

•	adjust the ranking criteria to fine-tune the order in which documents found are presented.

The advanced query screen has two entry fields, the “search field” and, just below it, the “ranking field.”

  Tell me more about advanced queries.

  I’ll stick with simple queries.


Using advanced queries

Click Advanced on the simple query page to display a page with two entry fields:

Type search terms in the ranking field to control the order in which documents found are listed. NOTE: if this field is not empty, documents containing none of the terms in it are not listed.	Type terms in the search field (“Selection Criteria”) using advanced search syntax (AND, OR, NOT, NEAR, parentheses), described later. Optional: enter a range of dates for documents.
In general, you enter terms in the “search” field, using the advanced syntax described later in this Help. Documents that meet the criteria specified here are listed in no particular order.

If you enter terms in the ranking field, documents containing none of those terms are discarded—i.e., not listed.

Click here for more about the ranking field.

  Tell me about options for advanced queries

  Forget it, I’ll stick with simple queries


Forming advanced queries

There are two things to remember about advanced queries:

Normally you’ll type your search terms in the ranking field. To include additional terms that you don’t want to be used to prioritize documents, use the search field.

For multiple search terms, use the operators AND, OR, NEAR, and NOT. Click here for more information, or select any of the features below.

Searching for phrases*   Using multiple search terms   Using the * wildcard notation*   Constraining a search with prefixes*	See also   About punctuation*   Using upper- and lowercase*

*Same as for simple queries


Using advanced query operators
Using multiple search terms

Whenever you use more than one search term (in the ranking or search field) in an advanced query, you should connect them with AND, OR, NEAR, or NOT (or some combination of these). Choose any of the topics below for more information:

Require that multiple search terms are all in documents found: AND.

Require that at least one of multiple search terms is in all documents found: OR.

Exclude a given term from documents found: NOT.

Ensure that two search terms occur within ten words of each other in all documents found: NEAR.

Use parentheses in complex search expressions

You can type the operators in upper- or lowercase. To use any of them as search terms, enclose them in quotes, e.g., “near” near “not”

Searching for phrases   Using the * wildcard notation   Constraining a search with prefixes   Options for advanced queries	See also   About punctuation   Using upper- and lowercase


Searching for phrases

In an AltaVista search, a phrase is two or more words that you want to be adjacent, in the same order, in any documents returned. For example:

buffalo chips

New World Order

To search for words as phrases, surround them with double quotation marks in the text box. You can combine words and phrases in the same search:

“Metropolitan Transit Authority” MTA

Using the * wildcard notation   Constraining a search with prefixes   Options for advanced queries	See also   About punctuation   Using upper- and lowercase


Using the wildcard notation

To search for multiple forms of a word, or if you are not sure of the exact spelling, use the wildcard character, the asterisk: * (called “star” in this context).

The wildcard character stands for any 0-5 characters within a word. Examples:

comput* searches for “computer,” “computers,” “computing,” “computation,”etc., but not  “computational” (7 characters)

Constraining a search with prefixes   Options for advanced queries   Searching for phrases	See also   About punctuation   Using upper- and lowercase


About punctuation

AltaVista ignores punctuation, except that it considers words separated by punctuation marks (rather than spaces) to be phrases. That is, punctuation marks group together words into a phrase, just like surrounding them with quotation marks.

Therefore, these search terms are identical:

now.is.the.time	=	“now is the time”

U.S.A	=	“U S A”

Thompson’s Gazelle 	=	“Thompson s” Gazelle

Note that this doesn’t mean you can’t find terms with punctuation in documents. AltaVista sees them the same way when it’s searching. It just means you can’t distinguish between “can’t” and, say, “can:t” – not usually a problem.

Constraining a search with prefixes   Options for advanced queries   Searching for phrases	See also   Using upper- and lowercase


Using upper- and lowercase

Typing words in lowercase tells AltaVista to ignore case, and consider any and all combinations of upper- and lowercase in its search.

mash finds “mash,” “Mash,” “MASH,” etc.

Typing even one character of a word in uppercase restricts a search to that exact “case configuration.”

PEN finds “PEN” but not “pen,” “Pen,” etc.

Note that the same applies to accented characters:

Resume finds “Resume” and “Resumé,” but

Resumé won’t find “Resume”

Using the * wildcard notation   Constraining a search with prefixes   Options for advanced queries   Searching for phrases	See also   About punctuation


Constraining the search with prefixes
Constraining a search with prefixes

In addition to specifying what to look for, you can also tell  AltaVista where to look. To do this, type, as part of the search term, a keyword prefix, followed by a colon and appropriate text.

AltaVista has keyword prefixes for both Web and Newsgroup searches. This table summarizes the web search keyword prefixes currently available.

Web search prefixes

anchor:hyperlink text Searches hyperlink text applet: applet class name text Searches names of Java applet classes  host:host name text Searches Web server host names image:image name text Searches Web page image names	link:URL text Searches text of links to other web pages text:text visible on page Searches normal page text, i.e., not host names, hyperlinks, etc.  title:page title text Searches Web page titles url:URL text Searches Web page URLs.


Newsgroup search prefixes
Constraining a search with prefixes

In addition to specifying what to look for, you can also tell  AltaVista where to look. To do this, type, as part of the search term, a keyword prefix, followed by a colon and appropriate text.

AltaVista has keyword prefixes for both Web and Newsgroup searches. This table summarizes the Newsgroup search keyword prefixes currently available.

Newsgroup search prefixes

from:”From:” field text Searches text of newsroup article “From:” fields subject:”Subject:” field text Searches text of newsroup article “Subject:” fields	newsgroups:newsgroup name text Searches articles in newsgroup(s) specified summary:article summary text Searches text of newsroup article summaries keywords:keyword list text Searches text of newsroup article keyword lists


Advanced query page

Click here to reach simple query page


AND operator

To ensure that two or more terms are all in documents found, connect them with AND:

"back pain" and pregnancy

Instead of AND, you can use the symbol &.


OR operator

To ensure that at least one of two or more terms is in all documents found, connect them with OR:

spuds or potatoes

Note that this is the same as entering spuds potatoes in a simple search. That is, a simple search automatically joins all terms with a logical OR unless you specify otherwise (i.e., with a “+”).

Instead of OR, you can use the symbol | (vertical bar).


NOT operator

To ensure that a given term is not in any documents found, precede it with NOT:

opera and not Wagner

Note that opera not Wagner (without the “and”) is not allowed.

Instead of NOT, you can use the symbol !


hyperlink

A hyperlink is what tells your browser where to go when you click on a "hot spot," text or an icon, on a web page. It's an address, and it might send you to another page, or to another part of the page you're on.


Java applet

A Java applet is a program on a web page that is downloaded to your computer with the rest of the page, and executes there. Examples:  an animated graphic, or a text field with scroll bars.


Host names
Host name

A host is a computer connected directly to the Internet. A host name is the part of a URL, or Internet address, that identifies the computer that a given web page or other Internet resource resides on.


URL

A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is an address that uniquely specifies a given web page, FTP site, or other Internet resource. AltaVista's URL is

http://www.altavista.digital.com


NEAR operator

To ensure that two terms count as found only if they occur within ten words of each other, use NEAR:

“Windows 95” near troubleshooting

This operator is especially useful for phrases that you want to search for in various forms, such as names:

Oliver near Holmes 	finds “Oliver Wendell Holmes,” “Holmes, Oliver W.,” etc.

Instead of NEAR, you can use the symbol  ~.


Using parentheses in advanced queries

When using more than one operator, use parentheses to control how AltaVista interprets the expression. Examples:

“Windows 95” near (shareware or freeware)

(ergonomic or “lumbar support”) and (office or executive) and chair


The ranking field

The term “ranking field” seems to be a misnomer, since, as AltaVista's own help text puts it, “when the ranking field is not empty, documents that contain none of the words in the ranking field are discarded.”

If so, then you're not controlling the order in which documents are listed, but which documents are listed. You could do the same thing with the AND operator in the search field. I’m not sure what the difference, if any, would be.

The best strategy is probably to avoid using the ranking field. (So far, Digital has not responded to my questions. If you have any relevant information, please let me know, at how2@best.com, so I can update this Help.)


In simple and advanced queries, you can...

•	search websites and newsgroups

•	specify words or phrases that must (or must not) be in documents found

•	use wildcards in queries (opera*s searches for “operas,” “operands,” “operations,” etc.)

•	constrain a search with prefixes, e.g., “newsgroups:alt.apocalypse.when”


In advanced queries only, you can...

•	require that words be “near” (within ten words of) each other

•	use AND, OR, and NOT, and parentheses, to specify complex search expressions

•	have more control over the order in which found documents are presented.

The “NEAR” keyword can be useful, and parentheses provide a lot of flexibility. However, you’re probably better off using a simple query unless you really need these features.