Search Tips

• Performing an effective search
• Improving your search terms

To perform a simple search, type one or more terms in the search box and click the Search button. The search function returns a list of Web pages that contains your terms. During this process, search finds singular and plural forms of many words and corrects minor misspellings.The search function is not case sensitive.

The most relevant pages display at the top of your results list. Alternatively, you can sort results "by Publish Date."

Performing an effective search

Take the following actions to make your search more effective:

• Be specific. Try using terms that are unique or try adding descriptive terms. For example, a search for DB2 might return too many results. If you are really looking for DB2 UDB, enter db2 udb or db2 udb linux.
• Try using synonyms. If you get too few results or do not find what you are looking for, try synonyms for your original terms.
• Check your spelling. A single misspelled or mistyped term can change your results.
• Learn from your results. Your search might not return exactly what you are looking for, but scanning the results can help you see the words that were found and give you ideas for other searches.

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Improving your search terms

Most of the time, a simple search finds relevant results. The following search operators help you to refine your search.

Exact phrase searches

Add double quotation marks (" ") around specific phrases to focus your search on the exact phrase. A phrase search can greatly reduce the number of results. For example, enter:

"hybrid cloud"

The results contain pages that have the exact phrase hybrid cloud in them.

Adding double quotation marks around your search words also prevents spelling corrections.

Excluding terms

Include a minus sign (-) at the beginning of a term to exclude all the pages with that term. Do not leave any space between the minus sign and the term, but leave a space between search terms. For example, enter:

POWER8 -virtualization

The results contain pages with POWER8 but not the word virtualization.

Exact terms

The IBM search function automatically searches for synonyms of many terms. Include a plus sign (+) at the beginning of a term to require that the results match the term precisely. Do not leave any space between the plus sign and the term, but leave a space between search terms. For example, if you want to search for z/OS workshop and not z/OS training, enter:

z/OS +workshop

The results contain pages with z/OS and workshop, and synonyms for workshop are not used.

Expanding your search with the OR operator

Use the OR operator between terms to indicate that you want the results to contain either one of several terms. You must type OR in capital letters. For example, enter:

storwize v7000 OR v3500

The results contain pages that have storwize v7000 or storwize v3500.

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