Yahoo! Tutorial

by Randy D. Ralph, MLIS, Ph.D.

Last updated September 11, 1996
GO TO: Yahoo! BACK: Search Form NEXT: Logic Tutorial TOP: Search Engines
The Yahoo! query forms interface is shown below. A principal benefit of using the Yahoo! engine is that it interfaces with Yahoo!'s Internet index. Yahoo!'s catalog of the Internet is one of the best. If you locate one good site in your search within a Yahoo! category, you'll find many related sites there, as well. This is a very powerful feature of the Yahoo! search engine.

The Yahoo! Query Form:

Building a search query in the WebCrawler forms interface requires six simple steps:

Type your search terms, separated by spaces, into the input box at the very top of the form.

NOTE: The Yahoo! search engine automatically defaults to term truncation. For example, if you enter SPIRIT into the search input box, Yahoo! will find documents containing all words beginning with that root such as, spirit, spirits, spirited, spiriting spiritual and all other possible forms. Under most circumstances this is a handy feature because it makes it unnecessary for you to enter all these variant spellings but it can also get in the way when you're just interested in one form of a term.

Locate the three radio buttons labeled Search that control where Yahoo! will look for your terms and select one of the options by clicking on the corresponding button. When a radio button is selected it looks like this - . Note that the default setting is to Yahoo!. The Search Location Options are shown in the table below:

Search Location Options:
Yahoo! General Search
When this radio button is set Yahoo! will look in its own indexes and libraries for your search terms to locate corresponding Yahoo! indexed sites and WWW sites.
Usenet News Search
When this radio button is set Yahoo! look only in Usenet newsgroup archives for your search terms.
Email addresses People Search
When this radio button is set Yahoo! will search the Web for electronic mail addresses that contain your terms.

Move down to the section labeled Find matches that contain and locate the two radio buttons that control how Yahoo! will link the terms you have entered. These Search Options will apply either the Boolean (OR) or the Boolean (AND) among all the terms entered. When a radio button is selected it looks like this - . Note that the default setting is to Yahoo!. The Search Options are shown in the table below:

Search Options:
Boolean OR Broad Search
When this radio button is set Yahoo! will return documents that have at least one of the terms you have entered.
Boolean AND Focused Search
When this radio button is set Yahoo! will return only documents that contain all of the terms you have entered.

Move down to the section labeled Consider keys to be and locate the two radio buttons that control how Yahoo! will treat the terms you have entered. These Search Options determine whether or not Yahoo! will treat the words as Substrings (root terms) or as Complete words. When a radio button is selected it looks like this - . Note that the default setting is to Substrings. The Search Options are shown in the table below:

Search Options:
Substrings Search with Truncation - Broadens
When this radio button is set Yahoo! treats each word you have entered as if it could be part of a longer word or term. For example, if you typed ATMOSPHER and selected this option, Yahoo! would find documents that contained any words begining with the root ATMOSPHER- such as, atmosphere, atmospheres, atmospheric. This is a very useful feature for maximizing retrieval on variant word forms which really have the same or similar meanings.
Complete words Search without Truncation - Focuses
When this radio button is set Yahoo! treats each word you have entered as a complete and independent entity. It does not look for alternate forms. You get only and exactly what you have asked for. This is a handy feature when you want to zero in on a very specific or particular topic and don't want Yahoo! to broaden the search for you.

Click on he blink at the bottom of the form labeled Display. It displays the text 25. This blink controls the number of items Yahoo! will return from your search on each output page. The Display Options are shown below:

Display Options:
Note that the default is to display only 25 items on each search output page. You can choose to see up to 100 items per output page.
When you have finished entering your search terms and selected the search and display options you want, click on the button labeled Search to transmit your request to Yahoo!. If you have made a mistake you can blank the search form by clicking on the button labeled Clear.
GO TO: Yahoo! BACK: Search Form NEXT: Logic Tutorial TOP: Search Engines