WSG Yahoo Guide

Basic Syntax:

Find these words: Yahoo looks for all words fruit salad recipes but will ignore common words.

Find a phrase (words together): Use quotation marks: "fruit salad"

Must not have word: Use - sign: "fruit salad" -walnuts asks for no walnuts with the fruit.

Include stop words: Can be done inside a phrase ""

Stop stemming: Yahoo automatically looks for singular and plural and variants on some words. Use + to stop this. +searching +strategies

Boolean Operators:
OR: Look for alternates - nest terms -- salad (fruit OR vegetables)
Use - to exclude -- (rutabaga OR turnip) -greens
Search Features:

1. Spelling
Yahoo corrects the spelling and looks for the right form and yours.

For words like color, Yahoo looks for color OR colour. If you want only colour, use +colour.

2. Truncation/ stemming
Get singular and plural. Yahoo usually picks up both. Otherwise enter both with OR. Should use parentheses (A OR B)
Get word variants. Check if Yahoo picked up terms. If not, can enter several with OR. Should nest terms (A OR B)

3. Quotations
Get full quotation Use " " to mark words together. Yahoo looks for all words inside the phrase.

4. Show matches (Cache)
Cached View the page as it was when Yahoo indexed it.

5. Field Search
May combine fields in a search.

Find pages with some of words in title
intitle:"fruit salad" apples oranges - looks for fruit salad in title and the others anywhere.


Find pages with either A or B in title
intitle:"fruit salad" OR intitle:"fruit compote"


Find pages with some of words in url
inurl:blog shakespeare - looks for blog in url and shakespeare anywhere. TIP: To zero in on weblogs look for blog or weblog in the url.


Find pages at a site
site:utoronto.ca - Site can be the host url or just the organization's domain. Can also use domain:


Find pages at a site with a term
site:plc.fis.utoronto.ca genealogy


Find pdf documents on a topic
originurlextension:pdf "fruit salad". Yahoo also has ppt, xls, doc, pdf, xml, rss, rdf. Can combine with other commands.

OR use Advanced Search

Find flash files
originurlextension:swf hockey game. Flash files are often mini-videos that can be interactive. Good for finding online games and tutorials

6. Backward Search
Find pages that link to a site

link:http://www.websearchguide.ca -inurl:websearchguide.ca - looks for links to a page and excludes links from the site itself


OR linkdomain:www.websearchguide.ca tutorial -- pages that link to any page at the site and also mention tutorial

OR use siteexplorer.yahoo.com to analyze inlinks to a site.

7. Language
Language Select Use Advanced Search to select a certain language or country.
Restrict search Preset choice through Preferences. Yahoo can search 40 languages.
Translate automatically available with foreign language results.


8. Images
Find an image
Select the Yahoo Images Tab. Use Options> Advanced Search for more options.
Use trigger words in web search: image, images, picture, pictures to query.

9. Date Range
Find pages that have changed recently: Use Advanced Search to limit the search to one of the time periods in the pull-down menu.

Special Features:

Search Pad
Personal work area to save and share links, pages, and notes. Must be logged in.

Search Assist
Yahoo gives search suggestions as you type. Also shows them in Search Assist and in left side panel.
Identifies Concepts
from the first 20 hits.

Lists major sources in left panel, and groups video sites.

Shortcuts:
define bodacious - gets definition from American Heritage Dictionary
canada facts - entry from Columbia Encyclopedia
synonym moot - Roget's Thesaurus
weather wiarton
news poland
More shortcuts


Customize: Enhance display of search results from selected sources. These mainly apply when you are logged into MyYahoo.

News Search : News tab to news.yahoo.com
Shopping: Yahoo's comparison shopping service.
Images: Basic filters on type of image and on terms of use.

Video: Filters for search.

© Gwen Harris
Updated: December 30, 2009