Ananzi Search Help

Have a question about Ananzi?
Phone the Ananzi Helpline for assistance: (011) 575 0511 (office hours only)

Search using words
Search using phrases
Search using plain language
Including and excluding search terms
Search using field searches
Summary of query syntax
Stop words
Case-sensitivity

1. Search using words

To search for results containing multiple words in the Ananzi search engine separate these with spaces, e.g.

south african cricket team

This will return results containing any of the above words.

For more specific results, enter several words separated by commas which describe the subject more precisely, such as:

south african, cricket team, training

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2. Search using phrases

To search for results containing an exact phrase, surround it with double quotation marks, e.g.

"rugby team"

This will return results containing the phrase "rugby team".

Commas are not needed when the phrases are surrounded by quotation marks.

The following example searches for a document that contains the phrases "south african" and "rugby team".

"south african" "rugby team"

This will return all results containing either the phrase "south african" or "rugby team"

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3. Search using plain language

To search the Ananzi search engine using plain language, just enter a question or concept.

The Ananzi search engine identifies the important words and then performs a search for these For example, enter a question such as:

Where is the waterfront in Cape Town?

This query produces the same results as entering:

waterfront Cape Town

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4. Including and Excluding Search Terms

You can limit searches on the Ananzi search engine by excluding or requiring search terms, or by limiting the areas of the document that are searched.

A minus sign (-) immediately preceding a search term (word or phrase) excludes documents containing the term, e.g.

waterfront "Cape Town" -Randburg

This will only return results about the Waterfront in Cape Town, not the Waterfront in Randburg.

A plus sign (+) immediately preceding a search term (word or phrase) means returned documents are guaranteed to contain the term.

waterfront +Randburg

This will return all sites about the Randburg Waterfront.

Ananzi Search has a simple query syntax which gives you the pinpoint search power of Boolean logic, without having to remember complex queries. The table below shows the Ananzi Search operators that correspond to Boolean operators:

Ananzi Search Operator	Boolean Equivalent
default operator: you do not need to use any special symbols	OR

+	AND

-	NOT

phrase operator: enclose the phrase with double quotation marks	ADJ

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5. Search using field searches

The Ananzi search engine allows users to restrict searches to certain portions of web documents by using Ananzi Search field syntax. This allows you to search for web page titles, urls, embedded hypertext links, and any additional information defined with an HTML meta tag (e.g. author, date).

To search a document field, type the name of the field in lowe case followed by a colon (:) and thereafter the search term, with no spaces:

   field:term

e.g.

   url:www.biltong.co.za
   title:dstv
   link:www.ananzi.co.za
   site:startpage.co.za

If you enter a minus sign (-) immediately proceeding the field, documents containing the specified term will be excluded from the search results. For example, if you enter -field:term, documents containing the specified term in the specified field will be excluded from the results of the search, e.g.

   meat -url:www.biltong.co.za

This will return results containing the word "meat", but will exclude any results from the web site www.biltong.co.za

If you enter a plus sign (+) immediately proceeding the field search specification, such as +field:term, documents will be included in the search results only if the search term is present in the specified field.

   movies +title:dstv

This will return all results containing the word "movies", as long as the title also contains the word "dstv".

Field Search Summary:

Name	Description	Example
	If no field is specified, the text is searched for in the Title, Summary, and Body.	color printer

link	Searches a hyperlink within the text of the document	link:ananzi.co.za

site	Searches within pages on a specified site	site:www.startpage.co.za

url	Searches within the URL of the document	url:brabys.com/codes.asp

title	Searches within the title tag of a document	title:"springbok rugby" title:Pretoria

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6. Summary of query syntax

Ananzi's query syntax is very similar to the syntax users expect to use on the web. Queries are interpreted according to the following rules:

Individual search terms are separated with spaces as in the following example:

cake recipes
Search phrases are entered with double quotes, as in the following example:

"chocolate cake" recipe
Exclude terms using the minus sign ( - ) as in the following example:

cake recipes -rum

These examples exclude all results containing the word rum.
Require a compulsory term with the plus sign ( + ) as in the following example:

cake recipes +chocolate

This example requires the term chocolate to be present in all results.

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7. Stop Words

Stop words are terms which are ignored when the search query is being processed.

For example, the following stop words are ignored by the Ananzi search engine:

a	did	i	or	what
also	do	i'm	should	when
an	does	if	so	where
and	find	in	that	whether
any	for	is	that	which
am	from	it	the	who
are	get	its	there	whose
as	got	it's	to	why
at	had	like	too	will
be	has	not	want	with
but	have	of	was	would
can	how	on	were	or

NOTE: You can override stop words by using quotation marks around the word.

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8. Case-sensitivity

The Ananzi search engine matches the case-sensitivity of the search query when mixed case is used in a query.

For search terms entered completely in lowercase or uppercase, the search engine looks for all mixed-case variations.

Search terms with mixed case automatically become case-sensitive

For example, the query of Apple behaves as if you had specified Apple (which would find only the precise string Apple), while the query of apple finds all of the following: APPLE, Apple, apple.

A string of capitalized words is assumed to be a name. Separate a series of names with commas:

Standard Bank
Standard Bank, First National Bank, ABSA

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