User's Guide & Site Help

5.10 Search Results

5.10.1 Results ranking and ordering

The search results you see on your screen are derived from a set of general rules, some of which are adjusted to accommodate the special needs of this web site:

By default the results of a search are ranked by relevance. This means results are ranked according to the frequency of your term/s occurrence in a document, relative to its occurrence in other documents. When more than one search term is entered, proximity of terms is not considered (except in the case of an explicit "NEAR" query, use of quote marks, etc).
Searches use an implicit "and" between terms
Searches are case-insensitive when all search terms are in lower-case, and case-sensitive otherwise.
Searches are diacritic-insensitive when all search terms are entered without diacritics, and diacritic-sensitive otherwise.
Searches are punctuation-insensitive, unless punctuation is also a common diacritical mark (ex: insensitive to hyphens; aware of apostrophes)

Highest ranking is given to an occurrence of your search term/s in the titles and headwords for content. Subheadings are next in rank, and where applicable, keywords. Keywords and abstracts have been prepared for chaptered works to aid in searching. Full text is ranked last.

Type of content is taken into account as well in the "All" results list. Encyclopedia articles, then other A-Z entries are ranked first; then chapters; primary sources; chapters from the Qur'an; then images (Concordance Quick search Index results are ranked on their own as they display separately).

5.10.2 Using Search Results

After conducting a successful search, a Search Results screen will appear:

Content Dashboard

By default, search results will contain all content types. The numbers next to each content type in the dashboard will tell you the number of results in each.

You can choose to view (or "filter") the results for a particular content type by clicking on one of the content tabs.

Search Navigation

Search Navigation gives you the ability to move through your search results. You can move through your results page by page, or you can jump to a particular page.

The Search Navigation also appears at the bottom of the page.

Concordance Index Results

In Quick Search, both the general content and the Concorance Index are searched. The Concordance search results are listed at the top of the search results list, enclosed in a separate box. Clicking on the results will take you directly to the concordance. If there are no index results, this box will not appear on the Results screen.

General Result Listings

The general results list is where you'll find all of the site content that meets the terms and parameters of your search. For each search result, you will see:

Title (of document)
Content type:
Image icon (if applicable): The camera icon indicates if an article has an image associated with it.
Context of result: If your search term is found in the article title, you will see the first few words of the article. If your search term is found in the article text, you will see the text surrounding the first occurrence of your search term in the article.
Content Source: This indicates the original source of publication.

Refine Results

You may select an Era and/or a Topic and/or a Region to refine your search results. To see more specific options, click the plus signs.

You can only select one Era, one Topic, and one Region. Selecting a second option will switch the filter from the previous selection.

To enter multiple parameters, click More search options link, or select an advanced search form from the global navigation bar.

To remove a filter, select "All" at the top of the list.

More Search Options

To further refine your search, click on "More search options." This will bring you to the relevant Search form with your search terms and selections already indicated.

Display Options

Use Display Options to view more results per page. You can also switch from Relevancy ranking to Alphabetical. For most searches, the default is Relevancy.