Search Help!

How to do a keyword search?

The St. Johns County search engine offers a few ways to search for documents and web pages. They are:

• Keyword Search
  Keyword searches search for documents that contain all of the provided keywords.
  Examples
  • word1 - returns all documents which contain the keyword "word1"
  • word1 word2 - returns all documents which contain the keywords "word1" and "word2"

• Phrase Search
  Phrase searches search for documents that contain the exact phrase. Phrases are wrapped with open & close quotes.
  Examples
  • "Hello world!" - returns only documents which contain the exact phrase "Hello world!".

• Boolean Search
  Searches for documents in which the provided expression is equal to true. Syntax includes "not", "and", "or" and "()".
  Examples
  • word1 and word2 - returns documents which contains "word1" and "word2" only
  • word1 and not word2 - returns documents which contains "word1" and do not contain "word2" only
  • word1 or word2 - returns any documents which contains "word1" or contains "word2"

• Wildcard Search
  Wildcards are used to search for documents which contain parts of words. Syntax includes "*" and "?".
  Examples
  • word* - returns documents which contain words that start with "word" such as "word", "word1", "word2", etc.
  • *ord* - returns documents which contain words that have "ord" in them such as "word", "sword", "words", "word1", "ordinance", etc.
  • word? - returns documents which contain words that start with "word" such as "word", "word1", "word2", etc.