A query is a form of questioning, related to any inquiry in a prescribed form. The form depends on the site, which is being used to get a query. By prescribed format, It refers to either a natural language query or a Boolean query. Any precise request for information, generally keywords either in a question format or keywords combined with required operators in the field given to inquiry. Providing more description in the query text will yield more relevant results. The query can also be defined with the help of a parameters to make the search more precise. PParameters can be the page length, font etc.

A query which can be inquired by expressing it in the from of a simple question or in a usual conversational syntax it is called a Natural Language Query. Here, the query is phrased as if conversing with another person or putting forth any statement in the form of a question to another person. A natural language query generally finds more relevant information in less time. Common words such as ‘and’ and ‘the’ will be insignificant to the query.

Boolean queries, are more precise than the natural language query , require strict interpretation with the help of Boolean operators that can often exclude information that is relevant. Boolean query can be used to search two or more strings simultaneously. The query operators of Boolean searches must be in uppercase. They should also include operators such as AND, NOT, and XOR. Usage of parenthesis to group expressions is also available.

Boolean Operators

AND: It will return all documents with all the words specified. For example, entering sachin AND tendulkar will return all documents that contained the words sachin and tendulkar

OR:  It will return all documents that contain at least one of the words. For example, entering   sachin OR tendulkar will return documents that contained sachin or tendulkar

NOT: It will return all documents that contain the first word entered, but not the second word entered. For example, entering sachin NOT tendulkar will return documents that only contained sachin but not tendulkar

XOR: It will return documents containing one word or the other, but not both.

To match the exact phrase that is entered in the query string, double quotes have to be placed around the string, like: ‘match this exact text’.

Proximity

Proximity queries search the query terms within close proximity to each query terms. Single quotes around the search terms have to be used for proximity queries. For example, ‘Sachin Mumbai’ matches Sachin near Mumbai

Yours Always,