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Search FAQs
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Here are some frequently asked questions about the search capabilities of searchSolaris that might be of some assistance to you:
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How do I perform a search?
Just about every page on the site has an interface to perform a search. This interface provides a field to enter search terms where you can type a word, phrase, or question. After doing so, hit the Search button or press the Enter key. After a short wait, you'll be presented with a search results page that includes documents from sites on the web that include your search term.
Don't be alarmed if your search produces many results. The more relevant results float to the top of a results list. Also, remember that search results are a function of how specific your the word you typed in were. A search for "java" is going to return a LOT of results. They'll be Solaris-specific results, of course, but there will undoubtedly be many pages of them. If you get back too much, try refining your search. You might also try the feature to conduct complex searches. |
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How does searchSolaris's search engine work?
searchSolaris's editorial staff has identified almost 2000 Web sites that are specific to the Solaris market - everything from major vendor Web sites all the way through "labor of love" sites maintained by Solaris administrators, and everything in between: thousands of vendors, consultants, trade publications, training companies, and online resources. searchSolaris uses AltaVista's Search technology, which spiders every page of these sites on a regular basis. So when you do a search on searchSolaris, you're only searching against sites that are specific to your needs, producing more relevant results.
Another benefit to this approach is that the results you're getting back are much more current - because our index is so focused, our search engine spider is able to visit each site much more frequently than the major search engines.
In addition to the search engine, searchSolaris has an editorial team whose mission is to find the Web's most valuable Solaris resources - not just Web sites, but specific Web pages buried deep within sites to make your life easier. So if you can't find it through the search engine, consider checking our Editor's Picks categories.
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How do the category searches work?
The search interfaces in searchSolaris's categories are designed to help you refine your searches. Keywords associated with each category are transparently appended to your search term on an "OR" basis, making pages that include your search term and any one or more of the relevant keywords float to the top of the results list. The result is a search query that is interpreted something like this:
(keyword 1 OR keyword 2 OR keyword n) AND "your search term(s)"
If your results from the main search interface are too broad, you may want to try your search from the category interface that relates to the information you are looking for.
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How are results ranked?
As those of you familiar with Web search engines are aware, this is a common question. AltaVista Search ranks its results based on a number of factors, including the number of times the search terms are included in a document, their proximity to one another (for multiple word searches), whether or not they are included in the document title, and other factors. |
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Why do I see duplicate pages show up in my results?
In many cases, the pages are only seem to be duplicates. We've noticed that a number of the sites included in the search have not optimized their Web sites for search engine accessibility. A common problem with these sites is that they use the same page title and description for all of the pages on the site, or all of the pages in a given section of the site. So, when you see these pages on our results pages, they seem to be identical, but if you click on them you will find that they are in fact different pages from the same site.
Unfortunately, searchSolaris cannot do anything to change the way these sites are configured. However, now that this Solaris search engine exists, these organizations may soon find it to their benefit to make the necessary modifications to their site so that we can help users find their information. If you see a Web site through our results pages that seems to be configured in this manner, please take a moment to email us (and the company) so that we can bring it to the Web site's attention that users would like to see their information through searchSolaris.
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How many web pages are included in the search index?
The index grows everyday, as we spider our list of Solaris sites daily, and will constantly be adding to the list as new sites arise. Currently, the index consists of approximately 2 million web pages.
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How can I get my company's Solaris site included in the index?
Send an email to us at [email protected]. Our editors will review your site, and if we agree that it's relevant to the Solaris community, we'll include it in our index right away.
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Should I use multiple words to improve the quality of my search?
First, the number of results from a search query isn't always indicative of the quality of the search. By using multiple words to refine your search, you'll most likely increase the number of results, but you'll also increase the relevancy of the documents at the top of the results. For example, a search for 'Solaris' returns fewer results than a search for 'Solaris documentation', but the 2nd query brings results containing both 'Solaris' AND 'documentation' to the top of the list. |
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