Search Help

Users may also filter and restrict your results using the radio buttons on menu located to the right of the search box:

• View All: Displays all relevant organisation names
• Non +Plus Results: Displays lead group organisations with only regulatory data
• +Plus Results: Displays lead group organisations that have volunteered additional information

Search operators for standard search

People tend to use search operators less than 5% of the time. Basic simple search is often enough. However, we think its important that you have as much control as you need. Just like Google searching, when applied, these tell the search algorithm to focus on specific aspects of the search term.

For the purpose of examples we will use square brackets [ ] to denote queries, so [ to be or not to be ] is an example of a query; [ to be ] or [ not to be ] are two examples of queries. In reality, you dont need to include these brackets in your searches.

Phrase search (“”)

By putting double quotes around a set of words, you are telling search to consider the exact words in that exact order without any change. You should be aware that by insisting on phrase search you might be missing good results accidentally. For example, a phrase search for [ "Alexander Bell" ] will miss the pages that refer to Alexander G. Bell.

Terms you want to exclude (-)

Attaching a minus sign immediately before a word indicates that you do not want pages that contain this word to appear in your results. The minus sign should appear immediately before the word and should be preceded with a space. For example, in the query [ anti-virus -software ] will search for the words ‘anti-virus’ but exclude references to software. NB when the minus sign is used as a hyphen and will not be interpreted as an exclusion symbol.

Wildcard (*)

The * is a very powerful feature. If you include * within a query, it tells search to try to treat the star as a placeholder for any unknown term(s) and then find the best matches. For example, the search [ Cork * ] will give you results about many of organisations who prefix their name with Cork

Search exactly as is (+)

Standard search employs synonyms automatically, so that it finds pages that mention, for example, childcare for the query [ child care ] (with a space), or Union history for the query [ tu history ]. But sometimes Search helps out a little too much and gives you a synonym when you don’t really want it. By attaching a + immediately before a word (remember, don’t add a space after the +), you are telling standard search to match that word precisely as you typed it. Putting double quotes around a single word will do the same thing.

The OR operator

Search takes in all the words you put in a search box unless you specifically tell it not to. You can expressly allow either one of several words, you can use the OR operator (note that you have to type ‘OR’ in ALL CAPS). For example, [ Cork 2004 OR 2005 ] will give you results about either one of these years, whereas [ Cork 2004 2005 ] (without the OR) will show pages that include both years on the same page. The symbol | can be substituted for OR. (The AND operator, by the way, is the default, so it is not needed.)

Fuzzy Searches

Standard search supports fuzzy searches based on the Levenshtein Distance, or Edit Distance algorithm. To do a fuzzy search use the tilde, “~”, symbol at the end of a Single word Term. For example to search for a term similar in spelling to “roam” use the fuzzy search: [roam~]This search will find terms like foam and roams.

Proximity Searches

Standard search supports finding words are a within a specific distance away. To do a proximity search use the tilde, “~”, symbol at the end of a Phrase. For example to search for a “hurling” and “cork” within 10 words of each other in a document use the search: ["cork hurling"~10]

Boosting a Term

Standard search provides the relevance level of matching documents based on the terms found. To boost a term use the caret, “^”, symbol with a boost factor (a number) at the end of the term you are searching. The higher the boost factor, the more relevant the term will be.
Boosting allows you to control the relevance of a profile pages by boosting its term. For example, if you are searching for cork hurling and you want the term “cork” to be more relevant boost it using the ^ symbol along with the boost factor next to the term. You would type: [cork^4 hurling]This will make pages with the term cork appear more relevant.