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Search Engine Reviews: Alta Vista and Four11 + Boolean Basics: The NOT (or AND NOT) Operator - Page 2

© Paula Dragutsky

Advanced Search: Alta Vista's Advanced Search mode supports searching with Boolean operators. When you search in the Advanced mode, it's essential to enter a subject word (which can be one of your search words) in the box labeled Ranking underneath the search box. The order of your results will be determined by whether an item contains the ranking word.

For a detailed topic or a subject involving several concepts, Alta Vista will usually give you more complete results than any other search engine. Once you learn how to work around Alta Vista's idiosyncracies and take advantage of its strengths, you'll be amazed at the breadth of material you can find.

UPDATE: YOU CAN NOW SEARCH FOR LEADING SITES ON ALTA VISTA

Since this article was written, Alta Vista has added a feature powered by LookSmart, which gives searchers access to reviewed Web sites about 16,885 subjects. This is a welcome addition to Alta Vista, since you now can find leading Web sites about a subject, as well as Web pages providing information about detailed subjects.

FOUR11 - A WELL-DESIGNED PEOPLE-FINDER

Four11 (http://www.four11.com) is the most visited of the several search engines offering e-mail and home address directories. In fact, it's one of the most visited sites on the Web. Why? I think it's because Four11 is quick, easy to use, well-designed, and has some entertaining special features.

In addition to e-mail addresses and telephone numbers, Four11 offers yellow pages, an AT&T directory of toll-free numbers, maps and directions, and a Net phone (e.g. Internet phones, videophones) user directory. Members of Four11 can search its database for other members, using a number of categories such as common interests, past and current organizations, etc.

Locate A Celebrity

Are you interested in where Harrison Ford lives? Do you want to write to Stephen King? A fascinating Four11 feature is a directory of names and addresses of celebrities in many different fields, for example, business leaders, actors and sports stars.

Four11's e-mail finder is quick and gives you considerable flexibility in how you can enter names, but it has the same limitations as other e-mail directories. You can readily find people who belong to large, commercial online network domains, (e.g. aol or msn), but if the person you're looking for has an e-mail address with a less common domain (e.g. edu or co), the address is less likely to be in Four11's directory.

BOOLEAN BASICS - the NOT (or AND NOT) OPERATOR

In previous articles, I've discussed the AND, OR and NEAR Boolean operators. NOT (or AND NOT) is the last basic Boolean operator. It - like the others - is easy to use and probably familiar to you if you've been using search engines. (AND NOT is another way of expressing the NOT operator, and is totally separate from the AND operator.)

The copyright of the article Search Engine Reviews: Alta Vista and Four11 + Boolean Basics: The NOT (or AND NOT) Operator - Page 2 in Search Engines is owned by Paula Dragutsky. Permission to republish Search Engine Reviews: Alta Vista and Four11 + Boolean Basics: The NOT (or AND NOT) Operator - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.