Convert Your Questions to Queries

combo lock: Dial it in! Once you understand the combination lock concept of exactly matching keywords and the content you seek, you can take your Search Box Strategy to the next level.

Keywords Yes! Stopwords No!

text: what animals are in danger of becoming extinct?

The words in bold—called keywords or keyterms—are the meaningful words in this natural language question. These are the words most likely to exactly match text in the webpages you seek. Instead of typing questions in the search box,  craft queries with keywords.

Understand, to save time, search engines will automatically skip some words you enter in the search box. Words that are automatically skipped are called stopwords. Here are just a few of the most common stopwords.

Stop words: what are in of a an any the to with from that who

To improve speed and efficiency, all search engines exclude stopwords. Stopwords are so common, matching them would take extra time and computing power without giving better results. When you craft your queries, save time and space by removing stopwords from your queries. Instead spend your energy on brainstorming words that describe your search topic concisely.

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Authored by Dennis O'Connor 2003-2004