Search Rules

BlackDog's search engine helps you find documents on this website only.  You will not find results from other sites on the internet, and you might not find something that's located on BlackDog's mirror site:  blackdog4kids.com.  The first thing to do is check the links at the bottom of almost every page on BlackDog and go from there.

If you are searching for a postcard someone sent you, you will not find it using this search.  Postcard messages are private and only should be seen by the person who sent the message and the person intended to receive it.  For answers to questions about postcards, go here.

Here's how this search works:  you tell the search service what you're looking for by typing in keywords, phrases, or questions in the search box.  The search service responds by giving you a list of all the Web pages in our index relating to those topics.  The most relevant content will appear at the top of your results.

More Basics - An Overview

Here's a quick overview of the rest of our Basic Help. Just click on the links to jump to these sections.  NOTE:  These are examples only.  BlackDog's search will not give you results on Elvis or Microsoft, etc.

What is an 'Index'?
What is a word?
What is a phrase?
Simple Tips for More Exact Searches
Fancy Features for Typical Searches

What is an Index?

Webster's dictionary describes an "index" as a sequential arrangement of material.  BlackDog's index is a collection of Web pages on this site only.  It does not search the web for you.  BlackDog's 'index' becomes larger everyday as content is added to the site.  When you use our search service, you search the entire collection using keywords or phrases.

What is a word?

When searching, think of a word as a combination of letters and numbers.  The search service needs to know how to separate words and numbers to find exactly what you want.  You can separate words using white space and tabs.

What is a phrase?

You can link words and numbers together into phrases if you want specific words or numbers to appear together in your result pages.  If you want to find an exact phrase, use "double quotation marks" around the phrase when you enter words in the search box.

Example #1:  To find lyrics by the King, type "you ain't nothing but a hound dog" in the search box.  You can also create phrases using punctuation or special characters such as dashes, underscore lines, commas, slashes, or dots.

Example #2:  Try searching for 1-800-999-9999 instead of 1 800 999 9999.  The dashes link the numbers together as a phrase.

Simple Tips for More Exact Searches

When in doubt, use lowercase text.  When you use lowercase, the search service finds both upper and lowercase results.  When you use upper case text, the search service finds only upper case.

Example:  When you search for paris, you'll find Paris, paris, and PARIS in your result pages.  However, when you search for Paris, you'll only see Paris in the result pages.

Including or excluding words:

To make sure that a specific word is always included in your search topic, place the plus (+) symbol before the key word in the search box.  To make sure that a specific word is always excluded from your search topic, place a minus (-) sign before the keyword in the search box.

Example:  To find recipes for cookies with oatmeal but without raisins, try recipe cookie +oatmeal -raisin.

Expand your search using wildcards (*):

By typing an * at the end of a keyword, you can search for the word with multiple endings.

Example:  Try wish*, to find wish, wishes, wishful, wishbone, and wishy-washy.

Fancy Features for Typical Searches

You can search more than just text.  Here are all of the other ways you can search on the net: