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Search Help |
In most cases listings in the Healthlinks.net directory are placed alphabetically within subcategories of major categories. The majority of our provider listings are alphabetical by city. Information and reference listings are alphabetical by title.
As an example, John Smith, a family dentist located in San Francisco California would be found within the directory under Dentists:-->Practices:-->Family Practices:-->United States--> Since Dr. Smith is located in San Francisco, his listing would be alphabetical by city (San Francisco).
To limit the number of listings, we provide further refinement by state or country that allows you to use the 'Refine by Location' box located on each directory page.
Our search engine additionally allows searching within the category or subcategory. To use this feature, enter your search term in the search box and select 'Within Your Category' or 'Within Your Results'. A note about search terms: The more detailed your query, the more relevant your results.
The Healthlinks search engine provides an
advanced capability that will check your spelling and recommend an
alternative word/term if it does not recognize the one you have entered.
Using our Search Engine
Our search engine comes complete with some advanced capabilities to help you find exactly what you're looking for. These capabilities are best shown with a few examples:
Prefacing a search term with a "special" character can greatly help you to narrow your searches....
Symbol |
Translation |
Example |
Usage |
+ / and |
Require this term | +internet | Will only display listings that contain the word 'internet' |
- |
Forbid this term | -web or ... +internet -web |
Will only display listings that DO NOT contain the word 'web' |
or |
Prefer this term | +internet or web | This will find all listings containing 'internet', and will rank those that also contain the word 'web' a bit higher. (since web is 'preferred') |
' ' |
Exactly match this phrase | 'Internet Help' | This will find all listing that contain the phrase 'Internet Help'. Note that using the quote marks forces the engine into a case-sensitive search. |
url: |
Find all entries belonging to a given domain or matching a file name | url:www.mysite.com url:*asp |
The top example will return all entries in the www.mysite.com domain. The lower example shows how you could find every .asp page listed in the engine. |
mailto |
Find all entries submitted by a person with this email address | mailto:fred@mysite.com mailto:fred@mysi* |
This is a convenience search, if you know who posted a link (or want to see if a certain person has posted any links, This is how you'd find them. |
* |
Match anything | *net* inter*
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The asterisk is a powerful search tool, but has some limitations. It cannot span words - that is, the query 'powerfu*earch' would not match the first sentence of this paragraph - and it can represent at most four letters or numbers. To avoid overly broad searches, the asterisk can only be used in words or phrases which have at least three alpha-numeric characters. A search for 'th*' would be ignored. |
Note on case sensitivity - only words or phrases containing
an upper case character will be treated as case sensitive. A search on 'usa'
will match 'Usa', 'USA', and 'usA', while the term 'USA'
matches only its uppercase version.
Note on punctuation - in your search string, do not use punctuation marks such as periods, question marks, comma's, slashes. As an example, use Inc rather than Inc.