in the box next to Search these results.
When a search yields many items that don't quite focus on your subject, an effective way to increase the relevance of your results can be to search for your subject words in the titles of Web pages. To do this, click on Show pages with (your keywords) in the title
Another option for improving specificity is to select Find related web pages for an item that you find particularly pertinent. This will prompt Lycos to perform a search for similar items. (While this option can be quite helpful, I haven't always agreed with the system's idea of "similar.")
You can select Search for text in the URL's (web addresses) to find web pages with your subject word in the URL or Search within specific web site if you know which site contains the information you're looking for. To search within a specific site, you need to know the address of the site. This option is most valuable with very large sites (e.g. http://www.microsoft.com).
How To Use The Pro Power Panel
For more precise results, you can go to Advanced Search and use the menu choices in the Pro Power Panel. Some of the elements you can specify are how important it is for your search words to Appear in title, Appear early in text, or Appear close together.
I've tried using the Pro Power Panel a number of times, but it hasn't improved my results. You might have better luck.
Searching With Boolean Operators
Lycos supports an elaborate set of Boolean operators (including some that are rarely used) in the Advanced Search mode. In addition to AND, OR, NOT and NEAR, you can also use ADJ, FAR and BEFORE. For an explanation of these operators, click on Quick Reference in the Advanced Search box or go to the Help pages.
If you want to use Boolean operators (and I think it's better to save them for the larger search engines), select all the words in the Advanced Search menu drop-down box. The default for the NEAR operator is a 25-word separation. You can change this by using / and then a number (e.g. NEAR/5).
USE AND MISUSE OF THE ASTERISK*
Most search engines allow the use of the asterisk for stemming or truncation. This means that when an asterisk is placed at the end of a word or string of letters, your search will capture items that contain that word plus any words that are formed by adding additional letters.
