University at Buffalo (UB)
Having trouble finding what you are looking for? Want to sculpt a precise search query? Use these tips to build a more focused search.
UB's Google appliance indexes all content on a page, including flash content, and some meta-data in the page <head> area, such as keywords and date fields. Your search will not find content that is not visible to our search engine, including secure pages, Javascripting, forms, and some external embeds. (Read more about Google's search appliance.)
To search a UBCMS site, just enter a word or phrase in natural langue (e.g. "kendo tournament"). The Google engine will return a list of pages that match your search word(s) as determined by its internal algorithmns.
Normally the search results will just be for pages from the website you are currently visiting. To do a system-wide search, please use our general UB search site: www.buffalo.edu/search .
By default the search results will be listed by 'relevancy'. The pages will be ranked higher depending on how many times they contain your search query, and where on the page your words are contained page (e.g. title and headings rank higher).
In a search, users may use the following advanced rules:
Partial Matching
Searches match whole words plus common case or tense variations. Hyphenated versions of the search word are also matched, because hyphens are treated as blank spaces.
e.g. a search for cat will not match "appliCATion".
e.g. a search for print will not match 'printmaking', but will match 'print-making' (hyphenated).
e.g. a search for cat will match "CATs" (plural) and "CAT-lover" (hyphenated).
e.g. a search for found will match "find" (present tense), "finds" (past tense/plural), "founded" (past participle) and "finding" (gerund).
Exact Word or Phrase Matching
Use double quotes "" around a word or group of words to require they be matched as an exact phrase.
e.g. "print" will match "print" but not "prints". (It will still match "print-making" because the hyphen is treated as a blank space.)
e.g. "school of nursing" will match UB's School of Nursing but will not match the nursing school is located on the UB South Campus.
e.g. "victor bull” mascot will match UB's mascot is Victor Bull, but will not match Victor E. Bull is our mascot.
Case
Searches are case insensitive.
e.g. a search for school will match "School" as well as "SCHOOL".
Boolean AND
Searches use Boolean And logic by default; i.e. all words are required. There is no need to include 'and' between search words, nor will that change the search results.
e.g. a search for bus stop is the same as a search for bus AND stop, and would match "the Flint Loop bus stop" and also "the bus does not stop at Flint loop".
Boolean OR
Apply Boolean Or logic by including 'OR' (in caps) between your search words.
e.g. school OR college will return results with either the word "school" or the word "college" or results that have both words.
Boolean NOT
Apply Boolean Not logic by prepending a dash on the front of each word you wish to exclude.
e.g. a search for '-student' would exclude any results that include the word "student".
Complex Queries
Combine the above rules to build more complex search patterns.
e.g. "school of nursing" OR "nursing school" will match "UB's School of Nursing" and will also match "the nursing school is located on UB's South Campus".
You may find it helpful to place parentheses ( ) around groups of words to separate the search logic in your query. Words within the parentheses will be treated as a Boolean AND string.
e.g. (school nursing) NOT south will match "UB's School of Nursing" and also "UB's nursing school' but NOT "the nursing school is located on UB's South Campus".