How to find what you want on the ISD website

The search function of the ISD website searches an enormous database of Web pages and files, using titles, keywords or text. You can maximize the potential of search engines by learning how they work, and how to use them quickly and effectively.

The challenge is to ask your question the right way, so that you don’t end up overwhelmed with too many search results, underwhelmed with too few, or simply unable to locate the material that you need. As with most skills, practice makes perfect!

Getting Started

Before doing a search, it’s important to define your topic as completely and succinctly as possible. Think about exactly what information you’re looking for and why you’re looking for it. It may sound strange but you might also benefit from thinking about what information you want to avoid. This will help you to discover the best keywords for your search.

For example you might want to find only the Statistical Publication Notices published by ISD on 29 January 2008. The best keywords and phrases to search with could be:

"Statistical Publication Notice" AND "29 January 2008"

The results of this search would deliver any page or file which contains the words Statistical Publication Notice and the words 29 January 2008.

Understanding the Results of your Search

Once you have typed your keywords and phrases into the search field on the ISD site you click the Go button next to it and you are presented with a new window which shows you the results of the search.

Your search may result in a number of items in differing formats: pdf, excel and web pages are the most common results. The type of format is shown in brackets just to the left of each item's title. The title is a link to the item. A short selection of content is shown beneath the title and the internet address of the item is shown in green below the content.

Keywords

Most searches will work best if you use several keywords. So how do you determine which keywords will work best?

Most users submit 1.5 keywords per search, which is not enough for an effective query - the recommended maximum is 6 to 8 carefully chosen words, preferably nouns and objects. Avoid verbs, and use modifiers only when they help to define your object more precisely - as in "outpatient discharges" rather than just "discharges".

Now you have your keywords. How do you enter them into the search engine?

Use of Phrases

Your most powerful keyword combination is the phrase. Phrases are combinations of two or more words that must be found in the documents you’re searching for in the EXACT order shown. You enter a phrase - such as "outpatient discharges" - into the search field, within quotation marks.

Punctuation and Capitalization

Our search is not case sensitive so you can type your queries in uppercase, lowercase, or a mix of cases. If you use lowercase, our search will match on both upper and lower case; so for general searches, lowercase is the safest form to use.

Advanced Searching

The Advanced Search option, which can be found just under the normal search function, is a powerful technique that will help you narrow your search to a reasonable number of results. It also increases the chances of delivering useful results. The Advanced Search screen allows you to select a number of options either individually or together.

Text typed into the "with all of the words" field will mean that the results will only show pages or files which definitely contain all of the words you've typed in.

Text typed into the "with the exact phrase" field will mean that the results will only show pages or files which definitely contain exactly the phrase you've typed in in exactly the same order.

Text typed into the "with at least one of the words" field will mean that the results will only show pages or files which definitely contain at least one of the words you've typed in.

Text typed into the "without the words" field will mean that the results will only show pages or files which definitely do not contain the words you've typed in.

If we again take the example we used in the Getting Started section we could type "Statistical Publication Notice" into the "with the exact phrase" field to ensure that our results deliver only those pages where the words Statistical Publication Notice are used and appear in that order.

This search would return a lot more results than we want because all Statistical Publication Notices from a number of years would appear in the results. We want to be more specific and as we know that we are interested in a specific timeframe we can also add the words "29 January 2008" into the "with the exact phrase" field. Using inverted commas around each phrase lets you search for two phrases at the same time. So the field content would look like this:

"Statistical Publication Notice" "29 January 2008"

This search would only deliver a page or file where the exact phrases Statistical Publication Notice and 29 January 2008 both appear. This is an effective search and your results would deliver a short list of the specific items you want.

A word of warning though, if you tried searching for the two phrases without using the inverted commas you'd be searching for

Statistical Publication Notice 29 January 2008

This search would only deliver a page or file where the exact phrase Statistical Publication Notice 29 January 2008 appeared all together in one long string and as there are no such items in the site you would end up with no results appearing. So the use of inverted commas when searching for more than one specific phrase is essential.

Quick Tips

Use nouns as query keywords. Never use articles ("a," "the"), pronouns ("he," "it"), conjunctions ("and," "or") or prepositions ("to," "from") in your queries

Use 6 to 8 keywords per query

Where possible, combine keywords into phrases by using quotation marks, as in "childhood leukaemia"

Spell carefully, and consider alternate spellings

Consider the use of plurals. For example searching for the term varicose vein will deliver a different set of results to searching for the term varicose veins. In this particular case a search for varicose vein delivered 28 items whilst a search for varicose veins delivered 481 results. 

Finally please remember that a successful search can sometimes take several tries.