Help with basic search

For basic search, you can enter one or more search terms into a text field. The more precise your information is, the better will be the search result (e.g. employees subject to social insurance contributions instead of employees).

If you enter several search terms, they will automatically be linked by "AND". Start your search by clicking on the arrow next to the search field. You will then get a list of relevant search results (hit list) in the content area.

Fields searched

Apart from the full text, the following metadata are searched in the data stock:

• title
• keywords/classification
• author/source
• short description
  

Links in the search field

If you enter several search terms, you can put operators between the search terms to permit a more complex search query.

A blank between two search terms will automatically be interpreted by the search machine as an AND link (e.g. entering two terms "term1 term2" means that "term1" and "term2" will be searched for, i.e. both terms must occur in the document.).

Other operators that may be used between two search terms are:

• OR = OR link (capitals required). Due to the ranking of hits by quality, the documents containing all search terms entered will always be shown on top of the hit list.
• AND = AND link (capitals required)
• NOT = exclusion operator (capitals required)
• Quotation marks " " = word group
• Brackets () = grouping
• * (asterisk) = any string of characters (not at the beginning of a search term)
• ? (question mark) = any character (not at the beginning of a search term)
• ~ (tilde) = search for similar terms (direct at the end of a search term)
• "+" and "-"(direct at the beginning of a search term)

The operators "+" and "-" may be used instead of AND and OR, although their meaning is slightly different. AND and OR are always put between two search terms, while "+" and "-" are put in front of individual terms. "+" means "the term must occur", "-" means "the term must not occur".
So the difference is the following: "a AND b" means: a and b must occur, "a +b" means: "a may occur, b must occur". The only difference between "-" and NOT is that NOT must not be put in front of the first search term, but always between two terms.

Examples of how to use operators

Search expression: employees AND (national accounts)
Meaning: Search for metadata and documents in which both the term "employees" and the term "national accounts" occur.

Search expression: bureaucracy NOT BundOnline
Meaning: Search for metadata and documents in which the term "bureaucracy" occurs and the term "BundOnline" does not occur.

Search expression: (births OR population) AND demographic
Meaning: Search for metadata and documents in which either the term "births" or the term "population" occur in connection with the term "demographic".

Search expression: ((population AND migration) OR demographic) NOT foreigner
Meaning: Search for metadata and documents in which both the terms "population" and "migration" occur or in which the term "demographic" occurs and in which the term "foreigner" does not occur.