Search Tips

Advanced Searching Options

The Pork Information Gateway search engine helps you find the information you are seeking, quickly and easily. Use these tips to maximize the effectiveness of your search.

Wildcard Searches
You can use wildcard searches when you are not sure of the exact spelling or want to search for multiple variations of a word.

Single Character Wildcard
Use a single character wildcard search ("?") to look for all terms with one character which is different. For example, to search for "text" or "test" you can use the search:

te?t

This will throw up all results for "text" as well as "test". Use this wildcard when you are not sure of the spelling of one letter in a term.

Multiple Character Wildcard
Use a multiple character wildcard search ("*") to look for all terms that differ by zero or more characters but have some characters in common. For example, to search for test, tests or tester, you can use the search:

test*

You can also use the multiple character wildcard searches in the middle of a term.

te*t

Note: You cannot use a * or ? symbol as the first character of a search.
Boolean Operators
Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logical operators. Pork Information Gateway Search Engine supports AND, "+", OR, NOT and "-" as Boolean operators (Note: Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS).
OR
The OR operator is the default operator. This means that if there is no Boolean operator between two terms, the OR operator is used. The OR operator links two or more terms used in a search and finds a matching document if either of the terms exist in the document. This is equivalent to a union in set theory. The symbol || can be used in place of the word OR. For example, to search for documents that contain either "pork industry", "pork" or "industry" use the query:

"pork industry" or "pork OR industry"

This will throw up a list of documents that contain either of the terms.

AND
The AND operator matches documents where both terms exist anywhere in the text of a single document. This is equivalent to an intersection in set theory. The symbol && can be used in place of the word AND. For example, to search for documents that contain both the phrases "pork" and "industry", use the query:

"pork" AND "industry"

This will throw up a list of documents that contain both the terms.

+
The "+" or required operator requires that the term after the "+" symbol exist somewhere in the field of a single document. For example, to search for documents that must contain "pork" and may contain "industry" use the query:

+pork industry

This will throw up a list of documents that contain the word "pork" and may contain "industry".

NOT
The NOT operator excludes documents that contain any of the terms after NOT. This is equivalent to a difference in set theory. The symbol ! can be used in place of the word NOT. For example, to search for documents that contain "pork industry" but not "pork gateway" use the query:

"pork industry" NOT "pork gateway"

Note: The NOT operator cannot be used with just one term. For example, the following search will return no results:

NOT "pork gateway"

-
The "-" or prohibit operator excludes documents that contain the immediate term after the "-" symbol.

To search for documents that contain "pork industry" but not "pork gateway" use the query:

"pork industry" -"pork gateway"

Grouping
The Pork Information Gateway search engine supports using parentheses to group clauses and form sub queries. This can be very useful if you want to control the Boolean logic for a query.

To search for either "industry" or "gateway" and "pork" use the query:

(industry OR gateway) AND pork

Including Special Characters
The Pork Information Gateway search engine supports inclusion of special characters that are part of the query syntax as part of the search terms. The current list special characters are

- && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \

To include these characters use \ before such characters. For example if you are searching for a phrase "A+B", search as "A"/+"B", instead of "A"+"B", because otherwise the plus sign will be considered part of the syntax.