DO NOT use very broad terms such as "disabled,"
"disability" or "program" - they appear
on virtually every page of our site!
DO USE specific terms, such as transportation,
housing, sexuality, arts, or parents; specific disabilities,
such as autism or deafness; state names, such as Idaho
or New Mexico; or organization names, such as ABLEDATA
or NARIC.
DO NOT use very common words such as "the,"
"and" or "with" - they also appear on
virtually every page of our site.
By default the search engine tries to locate pages
which have exact matches for all of the words entered
in your search query. If you list more than one term (e.g.,
education legal) it will try to find pages that include both
of those terms. If that fails, the search engine then tries to
locate pages which contain any words in your search query.
If that happens a short message is displayed at the top of the
search results indicating that this has been done. In addition,
there are several ways to modify the default
search behavior.
Use the wildcard (*) to include multiple words with
the same base. For example, parent* would find pages that
have the words parent, parents, or parenting.
Advanced
Searching
As indicated
above, by default the search engine tries to locate pages which
have exact matches for all of the words entered in your search
query. If that fails, it then tries to locate pages which contain
any words in your search query. In addition, there are several
ways to modify the default search behavior.
+
and - qualifiers
If you prepend
a word with + that word is required to be on the page.
If you prepend a word with - that word is required to not be
on the page. Example: +always -never
* wildcard
If a query
word ends with a * all words on a page which start the same way
as that query word will match. Example: gift*
? wildcard
If a query
word contains a ? any character will match that position. Example: b?g
All of these
techniques can be combined: +alway* -ne??r*
Thanks to
the fabulous folks at FreeFind
for this search tool.