Newsdesk Feature Spotlight: Searching Using START

Continuing our look at advanced searching in Newsdesk, this week we’ll examine the START operator.

START allows you to specify that keywords should appear in the first X number of words in any articles returned in your search results. Simple searches look for keywords that appear anywhere in an article. The drawback to this is that a passing mention at the end of an article will still match, but it’s less likely to be relevant to your search results.

Keywords used in the introductory paragraphs are likely to be the subject of the post. START gives you the option of distinguishing between items that are simple mentions and those that are the focus of an article.

Examples:

Here is a simple search, designed to find articles about Google (i.e., where Google is mentioned within the first 10 words of the article) and that mention smartphones anywhere in the article.

START/10:(Google) AND (smartphone OR “smart phone”)

We can do some simple Boolean logic with START as well. This query will find articles where Tumblr and Yahoo! are both mentioned in the first 10 words.

START/10:(Tumblr AND Yahoo)

This next search is looking for items about the major search engines.

START/10:(Google OR Bing OR Yahoo)

This search will return articles mentioning the search engines, but does not include Tumblr in the first 15 words. The idea here is that Tumblr should not be the focus of an article, though it may be mentioned.

START/15:(Google OR Bing OR Yahoo NOT Tumblr)

Emphasis Tab:

Another option for position-based keyword searching is to use the Position filter under the Emphasis tab in the Advanced search options:

Position doesn’t provide as much granularity as START, but it’s quick and easy, only requiring the tick of a radio button.

Click to Enlarge

Test it out and feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Leave a Comment May 30, 2013