Getting Started with Search

The search engine used on this website is powered by Google.

To search for a page or document, type a few descriptive words in the search box, and press the Enter key or click the arrow button. Google produces a results page with a list of documents and web pages that are related to your search terms, with the most relevant search results appearing at the top of the page. By default, Google returns only pages that include all of your search terms. So to broaden or restrict the search, include fewer or more terms. You do not need to include "and" between the terms. For example, to search for bus timetable pages or documents, type the following in the search box:

bus timetables

Google uses sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. For instance, Google analyzes not only the candidate page, but also the pages that link to it, too. Google also prefers pages in which your query terms are near each other. Every search result lists one or more snippets, or excerpts from the page or document, to display the search terms in context. In the snippet, your search terms are displayed in bold text so that you can quickly determine if that result is from a page or document you want to visit.

Note: Encrypted, viewable PDF documents are converted to HTML for indexing, but the HTML is not displayed.

Capitalisation

Google searches are not case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you enter them, are handled as lower case. For example, searches for "county council", "County Council", and "County council" return the same results.

Word Variations (Stemming)

 
Google searches not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms. For example, if you search for "info" or "info*", Google will also search for "information", "informing", "informant", and other related variations. Variants of your search will be highlighted in the snippet of text that accompanies each result.

Common Words

 
Google ignores common words and characters, such as "where" and "how," as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. Google indicates that a common word has been excluded by displaying details on the results page.

If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a plus ("+") sign in front of it. Include a space before the "+" sign, but not after it. For example, to search for pages or documents about Park and Ride, type the following:

Park +Ride

Alternatively, you can enclose a series of words with quotation marks and do a phrase search, e.g. "Park and Ride"

Date Sort

By default, search results are sorted by relevance, with the most relevant result appearing at the top of the page. If you want to sort the documents by date instead, click the Sort by Date link. The most recent document appears at the top of the page and the date of each file is returned in the results. Results that do not contain dates are displayed at the end and are sorted by relevance.

Expanding Your Search

 
You can expand your search by using the OR operator. To retrieve pages that include either word A or word B, use an uppercase OR between terms. For example, to search for information about social care in either Cambridge or Wisbech, type the following:

"Social care" Cambridge OR Wisbech

Refining Your Search

 
Since Google returns only web pages that contain all of the words in your query, refining or narrowing your search is as simple as adding more words to the search terms you have already entered. The refined query returns a subset of the pages that were returned by your original broad query. If that does not get the results that you want, you can try to exclude words, search for exact phrases, or restrict the search to a range of numbers. These techniques are described in the following subsections.

Word Exclusion

If your search term has more than one meaning, you can focus your search by adding a minus sign ("-") in front of words related to the meaning you want to avoid. Make sure you include a space before the minus sign. You can daisy chain a list of words you want to exclude.

For example, to search for library and exclude search results about Ely or March libraries, type the following query:

library -March -Ely

Google will return pages about libraries that do not contain the word "March" or "Ely".

Phrase Searches

 
Phrase searches are useful when you are searching for famous sayings or specific names. You can search for an exact phrase or name in the following ways:

By enclosing the phrase in quotation marks. Google will return only documents that includes the exact phrase you entered.
By using phrase connectors—such as hyphens, slashes, periods, equal signs, and apostrophes—in between every word of your search query.

Phrase connectors and quotation marks join your search words as a single unit. For example, if you type the following query, Google treats it as a phrase search even though the search words are not enclosed in quotation marks.

trading-standards