Look for words with the same prefix. For example, in your query form type key* to find key, keying, keyhole, keyboard, and so on.

Search for all forms of a word. For example, in the form type swim** to find swim, swam, swum, and swimming.

Search with the keyword NEAR, rather than AND, for words close to each other. For example, both of these queries, cajun and music and cajun near music, look for the words cajun and music on the same page. But with NEAR, the returned pages are ranked in order of proximity: The closer together the words are, the higher the rank of that page.

Refine your queries with the AND NOT keywords to exclude certain text from your search. For example, if you want to find all instances of cajun but not music, write the following query:

cajun AND NOT music

marsh OR wetland

This query finds all pages that mention marsh or wetland or both.

Put quotation marks around keywords if you want Index Server to take them literally. For instance, if you type the following query:

"town near Shreveport"

Index Server will literally look for the complete phrase town near Shreveport. But if you type the same query without the quotation marks:

town near Shreveport

Index Server searches all documents for the words town and Shreveport.

Use Free Text Queries if you want to enter queries using natural language. Index Server will examine your query, extract nouns and noun phrases and construct a query for you. With free text queries you can enter any text you want, from a proper question, to a string of words and phrases, without worrying about the query language. For example, if you type in the following query:

"What is Louisiana's cultural economy?"

Index Server will create a query for you automatically and begin the search. Note that when you're using free text queries, the regular query language features are disabled and keywords such as AND, OR, and NEAR are interpreted as normal words.