> back to top



Selection of keywords

In order to receive better results, it is considerably important to select keywords. Follow these tips:

• At first, try to enter obvious words. If you are looking for information about "Clifton", enter "Clifton", but not "beach in Cape Town".
  
• Use the words, which have more chances to be situated together on the page you are interested in. For instance, "Janu cheese" will give more results than "a popular cheese eaten on Janu holidays".
  
• Enter as many specific key words as possible. For instance, "Zalas lapas" will give more significant results than "a catalogue of telephones and addresses".
  

Funnel does not take into consideration frequently used words and symbols, or the so-called ignored words. Funnel always ignores, for instance, marks "http" and ".co.za", as well as some numbers and letters, if they do not help in the search process and seriously delay it.

For instance, will ignore the word and, and will perform the search as if only the word running and the word shoes were entered.

Nevertheless, in order to include ignored words into the search, use "+" sign. Always leave a space before "+" sign. You can insert "+" sign when you are looking for a phrase.

For instance, will find only the responses concerning bed and breakfast.

> back to top



Displaying of found search context

In order to see the found words in the page context, one or few extracts from the content of every found Web-page will be displayed.

> back to top



Phrase search

You can search for precise phrases containing one or a few side-words. In this case just write a text containing search phrases enclosed in quotation marks.

For instance, will find all responses concerning the popular Valentine Day, but not the responses in which the word Valentine and the word Day occur separately.

When searching for a phrase, take into consideration that only pages containing the precise word combination of the search phrase will be found, and with just the specific word sequence.

Phrase can contain several words, for instance, will find the responses containing this phrase in the text content.

> back to top



Word exclusion by use of "-" sign

You have the possibility to narrow search even more by entrusting Funnel Search Engine to exclude separate words or phrases from the list of results. For this purpose use 'minus' sign "-" adding it before word or phrase to be excluded. The 'minus' sign must be always preceded by one space.

For instance, will find the responses concerning windows only, but not the popular Microsoft Windows operating system.

Similar results will be obtained with: ; it differs from the previous result by the fact that only responses containing the exact phrase "Microsoft Windows" will be excluded.

> back to top



Search with OR

Funnel system supports the search by one or a few indicated words, processing the search request using OR logic. In this case you have to indicate alternative words in figure brackets {}.

For instance, will find all responses in which the word public, the word holidays and at least one of three OR-words - Christmas, Easter or Jani occur.

> back to top



Combination of logical conditions by use of brackets ()

Funnel system supports the search combining one or a few logical conditions using brackets. By these means it is possible to combine several logical AND and OR searching constraints.

For instance, will find all responses in which the word public and the word holidaydays occur together or at least one of three indicated OR words- Christmas, Easter or Jani occurs.

> back to top



Word cases and variations

In order to obtain the most precise search results, Funnel can search for word case variations and substitute words.

It is a special function of Funnel Search Engine. The function provides the search of the Internet content directly in various national languages in cases when word endings are changeable.

You can select this mode, if the tick mark: [ in word forms ] is visible in the search field. This function is only available under the advanced search option.

> back to top



Wildcard search using part of a word

In order to mark a part of a search word or a phrase, you can use asterisk sign '*' as a wildcard for Funnel system.

For instance, will find all responses containing the word English and either the word dictionary or dictionaries.

If you enter a wildcard which has too many matches, Funnel system can limit the quantity of returned results. In this case you'll see a warning at the beginning of the list of results. Avoid the use of unspecific word wildcard , such as man*, new*, with*, for*, etc.

During wildcard search, Funnel Search Engine will first of all select word forms which are the closest to the wildcard. Therefore, in cases when the quantity of returned results is limited during wildcard search, the result will include wildcard -closest rather than the rarely occurring words.

For instance, entering , as the result you will receive the words baby or babies, but not the words baby-sitter, babyhood or baby-farmer and other variations. In order to find longer words using wildcard search, always enter the longest unchangeable part of the template word; it will you give you the most significant and precise results.

For instance, if you enter , Funnel will find responses concerning only babysitter, but not any other babies-related issues.

ATTENTION! When you are using asterisk sign '*' as a part of word wildcard, make sure that the entered word contains at least 3 other letters or symbols. This restriction is necessary so as not to search for a vast volume of word variations, and in order to provide required minimum search speed of the Funnel system.

> back to top



Word letters variation search

In order to mark an unknown letter of a searched word, you can use question mark '?' as a template for Funnel system.

For instance, will find all responses containing the word ship and all possible variations of the second word, such as Nahimov and Nakimov.

Also, if you enter , Funnel will find both running and ringing.

ATTENTION! Using question mark '?' as a letter template, the entered word must contain no more than 3 of them. This restriction is necessary so as not to search for a vast volume of word variations, and in order to provide required minimum search speed of the Funnel system.

> back to top



Are the capital letters important?

Funnel Search Engine does not take capital letters into account. All entered letters are considered as lower case.

For instance, if you are searching either for or
or or , the results will always be the same.

Still, you have the possibility to search for proper nouns, or the words which are usually written beginning with a capital letter, using "Advanced search" mode. However, these results will not always be completely precise, since Funnel will also find the words from the beginnings of sentences. Sentence containing textual data almost in all cases has a capital letter at the beginning.

You can select this mode, if the tick mark: [ proper nouns ] is visible in the Advanced search field, or in additional options.