Searching the Web using "NEAR"

Posted in xn--kfs74mzzid01b.com edit by webmaster on January 9th, 2009

  • When I started doing websearching in 1996 there were a few search engines that supported NEAR. If you want hits on the name Bill Bloggs, at the moment you can search "Bill Bloggs", this will miss Bill W. Bloggs or Bill W Bloggs who may be the right lead. However, Bill NEAR/3 Bloggs will find it and all approximations. At present a Google search will swamp you with hits. Is there a way to do this in Google or is there any other search engine that supports NEAR. Thanks


  • You could use Google's word wildcard character , the asterisk ("*"): "Bill * Bloggs" returns sites with one word between Bill and Bloggs; "Bill * * Bloggs" returns sites with two words between Bill and Bloggs, etc.


  • Plenty of commercial search services (for example, Lexis-Nexis) allow proximity searching, but for some reason, all the web search engines avoid it, and even those that used to carry it (Alta Vista, Lycos, MSN Search) have since dropped it. Seems a shame, but I haven't found any search engines yet to replace this highly-desirable function. pafalafa-ga


  • PROXIMITY ON GOOGLE " For three-word proximity, GAPS runs six searches. Since the four-word proximity requires 24 and five-word, 120, you can see why the GAPS site has the three word limit." "Fortunately, for tech-savvy searchers who'd like to try larger proximity searches, the source code for the GAPS approach can be downloaded, installed, and run on your own site. However, due to the limitation of 1,000 searches per day through Google's API interface, only proximity of up to six terms could be done with this approach." http://www.infotoday.com/online/nov03/OnTheNet.shtml Does this help? Thanks, Bobbie7


  • Bobbi No its not what we need. Firstly, is there any search engine that supports NEAR? Secondly, is there a way to take the results of a google search and count the distance between the hot words, discarding those over a certain limit and returning the rest? Thanks Mugdig-ga


  • AltaVista used to support the proximity operator NEAR. Unfortunately, this feature, along with several other advanced search feature, is no longer available. Here you can read about AltaVista as it used to be: http://www.notess.com/search/features/av/review.html


  • Hiya Bobbie7 Thanks for your reply. IN my question I was talking about the boolean NEAR which takes an argument /x where x is the maximum number of words separating the subject words. So If I want Smith Valves but i dont knowe if it is Smith Valve Company or Smith and Brown Valve Company I can do Smith NEAR/3 Valve and this will get it. Using Google at the moment I will get a rash of Smiths in listings sites just becasue the word valve is a few thousand words away. In such a site I can also restrict to town i.e Smith Near/10 Milwaukee will probably be enought to encompass the town in the address area of the web page. Webcrawler and others used to support NEAR but Google never has. The Google API looks interesting but the one you showed me only goes up to 3 words and then only exactly 3 words. This is the same as using "Smith *** Valve" adn so doesnt give me a true working wariable because I have to guess correctly the number of words that separates them. If there is a tool that users NEAr then I wold be interested in writing an API. Is this possible?? Many thanks mugdig-ga


  • Unfortunatly I didn't find a search engine that supports NEAR. Hopefully another researcher can help. Best regards, Bobbie7


  • There's a Google API Proximity Search (GAPS) that lets you look for two words within one, two or three words of each other. Google API Proximity Search (GAPS) http://www.staggernation.com/cgi-bin/gaps.cgi Could you clarify if this is the kind of tool you had in mind? Thanks, Bobbie7


  • I really don't know if an API can be written to filter returned results. This question is still open and perhaps another researcher will be able to answer your questions. Best regards, Bobbie7


  • Bobboe You replied about another search engine supporting NEAR but not about whether we could write an API to filter returned results. Can you reply to that? Thanks







    • #If you have any other info about this subject , Please add it free.#
    Your name:
    E-mail:
    Telphone:

    Your comments:


    If you have any other info about Searching the Web using "NEAR" , Please add it free.
    Protect Your Computer from Viruses-Using Anti Virus
    IBM Rational IDE tops survey