Proximity

Proximity means nearness. Proximity asks that words be near each other: beside each other, within a few words, in the same paragraph. This is an important technique when searching full-text.

Unfortunately, web search engines rarely provide an operator for us to use to require nearness. Instead we have to rely on their ranking algorithms to look for pages with the words close together.

There are two exceptions: Exalead has operators for near and next; and Google will accept * to force proximity.

Exalead

Exalead has two operators:

• NEXT for words next to each other, any order
• NEAR for words within 16 words of each other in that order. You can also specify the nearness with a number; eg NEAR/2

You might look for "sustainable development" NEAR toronto canada.

This technique is especially useful for:

• solar NEAR (laptop OR notebook) - finding equivalents such as solar laptop or solar notebook
• pepsi (market NEAR/2 share NEAR/2 percent) - picking up information on the percent of market share held by a company.
• (soup NEAR leek NEAR potato) AND recipe - finding recipes for leek and potato soup
• peter NEAR/2 drucker - finding name variations such as Peter Drucker; Peter F. Drucker; Peter Ferdinand Drucker.

Must use upper case - NEAR.

Warning: Don't make the queries complex:more than two NEARs will overload the engine.

Google

Google accepts * as a wildcard. As we saw for phrases, the * can be used inside a phrase to substitute for a word or two. But it can also be used outside the phrase in a sequence of words. Compare pepsi * market share percent to pepsi market share percent. Using * provides a tighter set of results.

You'll find that fill-in-the-blank with an * at the end can sharpen results too. Compare pepsi was invented by * to pepsi was invented by. Again using * is better.

Or use it at the beginning of a set of words when you are looking for the subject. * rowed across the atlantic

See Google's help page -- More Search Help?

Proximity Exercise

Use Exalead - www.exalead.com/search

Search information about the market and related sales for organic chocolate.

Note: Feel free to substitute your own questions but make sure you use the Near operator.

Use Google's * to search information about the market for organic chocolate and related sales

Check your search construction against ours on the syntax answer page.

Where to Next?

Sometimes you will want to search on variants of your main word - perhaps investor and investment. Learn how to control this through Stemming