Use * or ? to look for words with the same prefix. For example, in your query form type key* to find key, keying, keyhole, keyboard, and so on. Using ? matches any single character.

Use ** to search for all forms of a word. For example, in the form type sink** to find sink, sinks, sinking, sank, and sunk. This is especially useful if you might be looking for a word in singular or plural form.

Use NEAR to search for words close to each other. For example, both of these queries, penny and candy and penny near candy, look for the words penny and candy on the same page. But with NEAR, the returned pages are ranked in order of proximity: The closer together the words are, the higher the rank of that page.

Use AND NOT to refine your queries to exclude certain text from your search. For example, if you want to find all instances of apple but not tree, enter apple AND NOT tree

• Use OR to find all instances of either one word or another. For example penny OR candy finds all pages that mention penny or candy or both.

Put quotation marks around keywords if you want them to be taken literally. For instance, if you type "penny near candy", the search will literally be for the complete phrase penny near candy. But if you type the same query without the quotation marks it would return all documents with the words penny and candy ranked by order of proximity.

These hints will get you started, but for more complex queries and more examples, see the Query Language page.