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How to Use Maknet Search
What is Maknet Search? Advanced search View by Web Site
What Can I search? Search results More Like This
Search tips Relevance rating Browser errors


What is Maknet Search?

Maknet's technology offers a unique way to search the Web: by concept. like most search engines, we've programmed our search engine to look for documents containing the exact words you entered into the query box. But Maknet goes further and looks for ideas closely linked to the words in your query. This feature broadens your search.

Suppose you enter elderly people financial concerns in the query box. In addition to finding sites containing those exact words, the search engine will find sites mentioning the economic status of retired people and the financial concerns of senior citizens.

Our search engine can figure out that relationships exist between words and concepts -- that the term elderly people is related to senior citizens. It learns about related concepts from the documents themselves, and learns more from each new document it indexes.
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What Can I Search?

Maknet can search Web sites, news articles from over 300 web-based publications, data on thousands of cities from around the globe or the discussion postings found in Usenet newsgroups.

World Wide Web
Use this option for a targeted search on the broadest possible pool of information. We search the more than 50 million Web sites in our database, looking for matches most closely related to your query.
NewsTracker
Use this option to search over current news articles from over 300 web-based publications. This collection is refreshed multiple times a day and contains articles that are indexed almost as soon as they appear on the sites covered.
City.Net
Use this option to search over four thousand online cities from around the globe. The City.Net collection serves as your business and vacation travel guide.
Usenet Newsgroups (brought to you by Deja News)
Use this option to find out what people are saying about a particular subject in casual conversations on the Net. Usenet is a vast collection of discussion groups (known as newsgroups) on every imaginable topic, from technology stocks to the Beatles.
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General Search Tips

  1. Search for ideas and concepts instead of just keywords, using more than one word in your search. Maknet uses Intelligent Concept Extraction (ICE) to find relationships that exist between words and ideas, so the results of a search will contain words related to the concepts you're searching for.
  2. Maknet's search results are sorted by document relevance. The results nearest the top will usually be the most closely related to your query.
  3. Use Maknet's More Like This link. If you find that one of the many results returned better describes what you are searching for, click on the words "More Like This" next to the URL. Our search engine will then use that document as an example in a new search, to find more sites similar to the one you liked.
  4. Use more descriptive, specific words as opposed to general ones. For example, a search for "Lamborghini" will return much more specific results than a search for "sports cars."
  5. Use the View by Web site function. Maknet's list of search results may present several pages from the same site. When you click on the View by Web site button, your list will compress to show the names of the sites and the relevant documents within them.
  6. Try an Advanced Search. Use the "+" (plus) sign for words that your results MUST contain. Or use the "-" (minus) sign in your query to tell the search engine that your results should NOT contain a certain word. When using these options, do not leave any space between the sign and the word.
  7. Use all of Maknet's power to find exactly what you're looking for. You can conduct the most comprehensive search on the Web through Maknet Search, find a focused list of sites through Maknet Web Guide, and use My Maknet Channel to deliver personalized information right to your desktop. But Maknet offers even more. MaknetSeeing Tours guide you through the Web, leading you to information on a multitude of topics. City.Net pinpoints destinations and resources the world over. And Maknet Reference helps you track down the people, businesses, and e-mail addresses you need. No matter what you're looking for on the Web, Maknet will find it.
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Advanced Search Methods

Searching for phrases (words next to each other)

When searching for a phrase such as better business bureau or san francisco 49ers, where you want the words in that order, just enclose the phrase in quotes. A search on san francisico 49ers returns all pages with any or all of those words, in any order somewhere on the page (with pages containing all the words ranked higher of course). But a search on "san francisco 49ers" just finds pages with that exact phrase on the page.

Using plus (+) and minus (-) signs

These signs tell our search engine which terms must (+) and must not (-) be present in the returned documents. When using these options, do not leave any space between the sign and the word.

plus (+)
If you put a plus sign directly in front of a word, all the documents Maknet retrieves will contain that word. So if you search for +billiards +rules, you'll be sure to get the rules of the game. Remember, you must mark each word appropriately to have these tools work. For instance, if you type billiards +rules, all of the documents returned will have "rules" in the text, but not necessarily billiards.
Minus (-)
If you put a minus sign directly in front of a word, Maknet will NOT retrieve documents containing that word. So if you search for +billiards -equipment -supplies, you'll be spared the billiards-related documents that emphasize equipment and supplies.

Using Boolean Operators

Boolean operators tell Maknet's concept-based search mechanism to turn off and allow you to search for documents that contain exactly the words you are looking for. Boolean operators include AND, AND NOT, OR, and parentheses. These operators must appear in ALL CAPS and with a space on each side in order to work.

AND
Documents found must contain all words joined by the AND operator. For example, to find documents that contain the words "wizard," "oz," and "movie," enter:

OR
Documents found must contain at least one of the words joined by OR. For example, to find documents that contain the word "cat" or the word "kitten," enter:

AND NOT
Documents found cannot contain the word that follows the term "AND NOT." For example, to find documents that contain the word "pets" but not the word "dogs," enter:

( )
parentheses are used to group portions of Boolean queries together for more complicated queries. For example, to find documents that contain the word "fruit" and either the word "banana" or the word "apple," enter:

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Understanding Your Search Results

World Wide Web

Maknet lists 10 search results at a time, with the most relevant documents first. For each site you'll see the title and URL, and a brief summary of its contents. Click on the title to go to a site. As with any of our results listings, you'll see the clickable option More Like This.
Maknet Web Guide
We list 10 search results at a time, again in decreasing order of relevance. For each site you'll see the title and URL, the topics under which it is categorized in our Web Guide section, and the review itself.
Usenet Newsgroups
Maknet lists up to 20 results of Usenet Newsgroup searches at a time in decreasing order of relevance. You'll see the subject of the message, the author of the message, the Usenet group it came from, and the date. You can click on the subject of the message to get the entire text. You can also click on the name of the newsgroup itself to see what other messages are posted.

Note: If you're not set up to view newsgroup postings, you won't be able to access any newsgroup through Maknet. If you're unable to access newsgroup postings, contact your service provider.

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Relevance Rating

Maknet lists 10 search results at a time in decreasing order of relevance. The percentage sign to the left of each result is the relevance rating. The closer the rating is to 100%, the more confident Maknet is that the document will fit your needs. The relevance ratings are automatically generated by our search engine, which compares the information in the site against the information in your query.


View by Web Site

By default, your search results are sorted by relevance. Our list of search results may, at times, offer several pages from the same site as separate items. We want you to be able to sort these pages by site. When you click on View by Web Site, your list will be compressed to show the names of the URLs and the relevant hits within them.

Suppose you queried for technology stocks. When Maknet searches, it may find sites all around the Web that discuss technology stocks. By clicking View by Web Site, you can quickly see which sites contain the most web pages from the top 60 results, and then just go to the site with the most information
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More Like This

Did our search engine find a document that discusses exactly what you hoped to find in your search? If so, go back to the list of search results and find the URL and title of that particular site. Click on the link More Like This, next to the title. We'll immediately use that document as an example in a new search, one that will find more sites similar to the one you liked.


Browser Errors

Once in a while you'll find that you can't access a particular site. Your browser may show one of the following error messages:

DNS Lookup Failed
DNS (domain name server) is a program that exists wherever you get your Internet access. It turns the Web site address that most users see (www.maknet.com.mk for example) into a corresponding numerical address that can be read by a computer. A DNS Lookup Failed message indicates that the browser could not contact your domain name server, or that the domain name server was not aware of the site. Make sure the domain name is not misspelled.
File Not Found
The page may no longer exist, or it may have moved to another address.
Server Error or Server Busy Error
The computer you're trying to contact may be offline, may have crashed, or may be busy. You might want to try again later.
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