AltaVista: Required Terms: Part II

[Douglas Cornwell]

I got the correct results when I tried this search in Lynx on my system.  
Suppose it has to do with the version of Lynx?

Doug Cornwell


Douglas Cornwell
dougc at pb.seflin.org


On Tue, 25 Mar 1997, Sarah Nesbeitt, Maxwell Library wrote:

> Thanks for the many responses to my query regarding using required terms
> (preceding them with a "+") in AltaVista's simple search.
> 
> I got a couple comments reminding me not to leave a space between the "+" and
> the required terms, but no, I didn't leave a space there, so that wasn't
> the problem.  Thanks, though.
> 
> It appears that the weird results I got (AltaVista ignoring the "+" sign)
> were due to the browser I was using at the time, although I wouldn't have
> thought it mattered.  At home, I use Lynx (one of these days I'll purchase
> a PPP account somewhere), and got the weird results.  Here at work, I tried
> it with Netscape, and the example search "+nesbeitt +library +bridgewater"
> brought up the correct number of results, 6.   Greg Notess' comment was
> on the mark - this problem appears to be browser-dependent, and apparently Lynx 
> interprets the + sign as something else.  This was using the latest version
> of Lynx (2.6?), on a Unix system.  The word order doesn't matter, and no
> odd version of Boolean logic comes into play here - it's just something
> peculiar to Lynx, though for all I know it may happen with other browsers
> as well.
> 
> >From now on, I'll stick to the Advanced Query screen when using AltaVista
> from Lynx.
> 
> Sarah
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Sarah L. Nesbeitt                        
> Reference Librarian                      E-mail: snesbeitt at bridgew.edu
> The Clement C. Maxwell Library                   nesbeitt at alumni.sils.umich.edu
> Bridgewater State College                Voice:  (508) 279-6153
> Bridgewater, MA  02325  USA
>