Support: FAQs

Question:

How do the fielded searches site: and url: work? How can I use site: to create a virtual collection? How can I limit search results to a specific site.

Answer

You can use the field search "site:<A Site>" to restrict your search to a particular site. 

i.e. site:www.mysite.com

You can use the field search "url:<Text within a URL>" when your search results must include some portion of a URL. 

i.e. url:/my_restricted_docs/

Field searches are also useful when using the QP or Query Prefix variable in creating virtual collections.

For example, if I have a URL like:

http://www.vindaloo.co.uk/somedir/someotherdir/somefile.html

...the site:<Site> search could match on:

www
vindaloo
co
uk

...while url:<part of URL> could match on:

www
vindaloo
co
uk
somedir
someotherdir
somefile
html

With the way that adjacency plays into the site: and url: field searches, you can also rely upon the success of expressions like:

site:co.uk
site:vindaloo.co.uk
site:www.vindaloo.co.uk
site:www.vindaloo

...and:

url:somedir/someotherdir
url:www.vindaloo.co.uk/somedir

...and so on.

By knowing what you can restrict using the fielded searches "site: and "url:"; you can restrict user results to a specific site, URL, or directory.