How do you use wildcards in search?

Search engine wildcards

• Do any of the freely-available (and free of charge) web search engines (Google, AltaVista, HotBot, etc) allow the use of wildcards? By that, I mean using a special character like * or ? to stand for any letter or group of letters. I've seen several articles that compare search engines, and they mention the use of wildcards, but they don't seem to actually work at the sites mentioned, nor do the sites themselves make any mention of wildcards. An acceptable answer would be a listing of a site (or sites) where you know first-hand that wildcards actually work, or some credible source that confirms that wildcards aren't in use anywhere.

• Answer:

  Hi davidsar-ga, As someone who does SEO (search engine optimization) as part of my job, I find your question an interesting one. Search engines are continually changing their search strategies and options and it can be a hard field to keep on top of. One of the largest sites devoted to searching strategies is Search Engine Watch led by search expert Danny Sullivan. In his article titled "Search Engine Features for Searchers" (last updated October, 2001) he mentions the following use of wildcards: * supported by AltaVista, Inktomi (iWon), Northern Light, Yahoo ? supported by AOL Search, Inktomi (iWon) % supported by Northern Light none AllTheWeb, Direct Hit, Excite, Google, HotBot, LookSmart, Lycos, MSN Danny also commented that "MSN's help says it offers wildcard, but it failed to during testing." In his article titled "Power Searching for Anyone" (last updated October, 2001), Danny has a bit more to say about wildcards. One of the most interesting comments regards 'stemming': "Some of the search engines offering wildcard search also support what is called "stemming." That means they will find terms like "singing" even if you only enter "sing." This also means you may not need to use a wildcard symbol." http://www.searchenginewatch.com/facts/powersearch.html According to Danny, stemming is supported in some manner by the following search engines: AOL Search, Direct Hit, HotBot, and Inktomi (HotBot, MSN). You can learn a few more statistics and how to access stemming features at these engines on his Search Assistance page: http://www.searchenginewatch.com/facts/assistance.html#stemming Here are some important comments and details about wildcard searching at specific search engines: AOL SEARCH According to AOL, the ? symbol serves as a wildcard and will replace any single character. "Examples: AT? Matches all of the following, ATT, ATM, ATS, AT1, etc." http://search.aol.com/help/tips.adp Danny Sullivan further clarifies the wildcard match in AOL Search "This only works to find matches in AOL Search's Open Directory information. It does not work to bring back matches from Inktomi-powered listings." http://www.searchenginewatch.com/facts/powersearch.html ALTAVISTA Altavista supports the use of the wildcard symbol * in the middle of a word or at the end. The only restriction is that you must type at least three letters before the * For example, the search "colo*r words" will bring up sites with "color words" and "colour words" http://help.altavista.com/adv_search/syntax NORTHERN LIGHT Northern Light supports two wildcard characters: * and % From their search techniques page: "To search for variants of a word root, use a * symbol to replace a series of letters." The * symbol can be used to replace multiple letters. Example: theolog* would also return "theology," "theological," and "theologia" "If you wish to replace a single letter in a word, use the % sign. This is useful for words that have different regional spellings, or which are commonly misspelled." The % symbol will only match a single character. Example: gene%logy would return pages containing "genealogy" and "geneology" (a common misspelling) http://www.northernlight.com/docs/search_help_techniques.html#symbol YAHOO According the the search syntax page at Yahoo you can employ * for wildcard searches. "Attaching a * to the right-hand side of a word will return left side partial matches." As in the Northern Light example above, "theolog*" will return "theology," "theological," etc. MSN From their advanced search help screen (reached by clicking on help from the below referenced advanced search page): "Use wildcards. Type an asterisk (*) at the end of a word or partial word. For example, typing part* returns pages that include partner, particle, participate, and so on." http://search.msn.com/advanced.asp I tested this feature and it does appear to work now (a search for "genealog*" brought up pages containing "genealog" "genealogy" "genealogia" etc.) but it does appear to change the order of the search results around a bit. One last important point to keep in mind. Inktomi powers some of the search results at many of the major engines and they offer two wildcard commands. The * symbol will match one or more characters at the end of a word (ball* matches balls, ballgame, ballpark, etc.) and the ? symbol can be used to match any single character. You can even use this symbol more than once ("??ng" returns "sing" "sang" "bang" etc.) According to Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch, this feature can be unreliable, depending upon which search engine is providing the Inktomi results. The "commands only work reliably at iWon, at the time of this writing. They fail to function properly at AOL Search, HotBot, MSN Search or LookSmart to bring up matches from within the Inktomi listings that they use. They also do not appear to bring up matches in wildcard fashion from any of the other data sets these services use, with the exception of AOL Search" http://www.searchenginewatch.com/facts/powersearch.html Search Strategy used: personal knowledge and the advanced search pages of the search engines in question. I also tested all wildcard matches and they appear to be working as stated. I hope this helps to answer your question! inquisitive-ga