How to Search

how to search

Searching with Minerazzi

In a Minerazzi search engine, all queries are of the form

query = search operator:search terms(1)

where search operators and terms are delimited by a colon. If no operator is declared, the default AND operator is used. So a query consisting of three terms (w1, w2, and w3) like this

query = w1 w2 w3(2)

is interpreted like this

query = AND:w1 w2 w3(3)

To do a complement search (a search for non-matches), just add an "N" to a search operator. In this way, for example, AND becomes NAND, OR becomes NOR, and so forth. The only exception to this convention is a search for XOR non-matches. For historical reasons, the complement of XOR is written as XNOR.

Why Minerazzi Limits its Search Results

Since its creation, the number of NOR search results have been limited to the first 30 counts. This is done to prevent NOR Dumps.

In addition, as of May 24 of 2015, Minerazzi returns the first 100 records for queries submitted with other search modes. Limiting search results is a common practice in the search industry. Actually many large search engines that claim to match zillion of records limit the number of available results to end users to about 1,000 records. Still, not all of these records are relevant or useful.

How Minerazzi Restricts Your Searches

In order to search, you need to:

  1. enter between one to five terms per query.
  2. use terms consisting of more than two characters.
  3. submit queries relevant to the topic, title, and description of the search engine in question.

The latter is very important as all Minerazzi search engines are a special kind of vertical search tools called on-topic search engines. These search engines are also called miners because allow users to search, index, mine, and recrawl search results. With a miner, users can also build their own customized collections. Additional information can be found in the article Understanding On-Topic Search Engines.

In the following sections we discuss some requirements for successfully searching with our platform.

Search Suggestions and Tips

You may want to know that:

  1. You may search with upper, lower, or mixed cases as Minerazzi is case-insensitive.
  2. You can search with diacritic marks (e.g., tildes, accents...) when appropriate.
  3. Queries consisting of nouns are more flexible and effective than other forms of queries.
  4. You can search for documents matching an exact sequence of terms by either double-quoting your query, using the EX operator, or by invoking this operator through our Match Previews interface.

Dealing with No Results

If your search returns no results:

  1. Use fewer terms or variations of these.
  2. Use plurals, singulars, synonyms, or combination of these.
  3. Check for grammatical typos and correct these as needed.
  4. When appropriate, search with or without diacritics (tildes, accents,...).
  5. Try searching with other search modes.

Query Reformulation

You may reformulate a query by:

  1. clicking on keywords listed in each search result.
  2. adding, deleting, or modifying search terms.
  3. changing search modes in the search box.

Perhaps the easiest way of reformulating a search mode is by using our Match Previews interface.