Check
your spelling
Make sure your search terms are spelled correctly. Our search engine
will attempt to find words that sound similar to your search terms,
but it is always best to try to spell the search terms correctly.
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Use
multiple search terms
Use multiple words when performing your search. The search results
will return more refined results from several words than from
a single
word. For example, typing low income housing tax credit will
return more relevant results than typing only tax credit.
(Remember, relevant results are returned even if they don't contain all
query terms.)
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Use
similar words
The more similar words you use in a search, the more relevant results
you will get back.
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Use
appropriate capitalization
Capitalize proper nouns. Lowercase words will match any case. For
example, typing home mortgage will return all documents
containing the words "home mortgage," "Home Mortgage," and
"HOME MORTGAGE." However, typing Home Mortgage will
give better results if you're trying to find references to VHFA
participating lender "Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Inc."
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Use
quotation marks
Use quotation marks to find words that must appear adjacent to
each other, for example, "purchase price limits." Otherwise, the
search results will include the word "purchase," "price,"
and the word "limits," but not necessarily in that order.
The words may appear anywhere, and in any order, within the document.
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Use
plus (+) or minus (-)
Use a plus sign when your search term or phrase must appear in
the search results. Use a minus sign to indicate undesirable term(s).
The plus sign tells the search engine that a certain word or phrase
is required in the search results, and a minus sign indicates
that
a word or phrase must be absent in the search results. Note: A
phrase must be contained within quotation marks. Leave no spaces
between
the plus or minus sign and the term.
For example, +"federal low income housing tax credit" -state might
be a good way to search for information on federal low income
housing tax credit while excluding material about Vermont
state housing tax credit.
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Use
field searches
Field searches allow you to create specific searches for words
that appear in a specific part of a document. A field search can
be performed
on:
- Body text (body:)
- Title text (title:)
- Alt text [text used
to describe images] (alt:)
- Meta description (desc:)
- Meta key words (keys:)
- URL (url:)
The field name should
be in lowercase and immediately followed by a colon. There should
be no spaces between the colon and the search term. Note: The field
searches can only be followed by a word or phrase. Phrases must
be contained within quotation marks. For example, a good way to
search
for a document that has "compliance monitoring" in its
title field would be title:"compliance monitoring".
- Use wildcards
Wildcard searches can expand the number of matches for a particular request.
The * character is used as the wildcard character. For instance, searching
for wh* will find the words "what," "why," "when," "whether," and
any other word that starts with "wh." Searching for *her* will
find the words "here," "whether," "together," "gathering," and
any other word that contains "her" anywhere in the word.
Looking for references to VHFA Director of Multifamily Programs Samuel Falzone?
A search of "Sam* Falzone" would return all references to Samuel
Falzone as well as Sam Falzone.
Wildcards may be combined with the standard plus (+) and minus (-) modifiers,
quotes for phrases, as well as the field search specifiers. +wh* -se*ch will
find all pages that have a word that starts with "wh" and which does
not contain a word that starts with "se" and ends with "ch." wh*
are will find the phrases "where are," "what are," "why
are," etc.
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