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Boolean search - a keyword search that uses the logical operators AND, NEAR, OR, or NOT. 

concept search - a search that uses a term's implied or broader meaning, rather than its literal one.  The Excite search engine uses concept searching.

database - information stored at a search tool's website.  Directory databases are kept current through reviews of sites conducted by experts.  Search engine databases are kept up-to-date by an automated program called a spider.

directory search - a hierarchical search that begins with a general heading and proceeds through increasingly more specific headings or subjects.  It provides a means of focusing more closely on the object of the search.  Also referred to as a subject search, directory guide or directory tree.

full-text indexing - a database index or catalog that includes all terms and URLs.  Unnecessary words are removed by the search tool's filter.

hits - a list of links or references to documents that are returned in response to a query.  Also known as matches or matching queries.

index - a file that designates the location of specific data in a search engine's database.

keywords - the words that describe the search topic.  Keywords should be unique words or a unique pair of words.

keyword search - a search that utilizes meaningful terms to define a user's interest.

keyword spamming - is the repetitive use of keywords embedded in a website to increase the relevancy ranking of a website.  Recent developments in search engine design can detect this practice and ignore keyword spammed pages when formulating relevancy ranking.

meta-search engine - a search engine that uses multiple search engines at the same time to provide a response to a query.

operator - a rule or specific instruction used in composing a query.

phrase search - a search that uses a string of adjacent, related words in quotes as the query.

query - a search request.  Consists of a combination of words and symbols that defines the information that the user is seeking.  

ranking - a way of listing hits by order of their relevancy.  It can be determined by counting the number, location and frequency of the term in the document being searched.

relevance - the usefulness of a hit to a query.  Most search engines rank their hits form the best match to the query to the poorest.

robot- the software for indexing and updating websites.  It travels the Internet scanning documents.  Also known as a bot, spider, or crawler.

search engine - a computer program that locates information in its database.  It responds by matching your query items to the engine's index terms in its database, ranking the matches and returning the hits to the user.

search tool - a computer program that conducts searches on the WWW.

stemming - also known as truncation, using part of a word to search for words that are derived from it.  For example, "home" would return information on homeowners, homeless, homey, homestead, etc.

wildcard or truncation - in a query, a symbol that replaces a portion of a word to indicate that other word combinations are applicable.  The * is used by many search engines to allow wild cards. For example, walk* will return: walking, walks, walker, walker.                                                                                        

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