Search      Live      Shopping      Local      Free Access      Email

Help  

Help      SEARCH     Introduction       What's New       Main Search       Advanced Search       Images, Audio, Video         Search       Results Pages       Categories       Discussions       News Search       FAQ       Entering Accents       Language Settings       Add/Remove a URL       Report Offensive Page       Family Filter       Babel Fish       Download IE 5       Download AltaVista Power         Tools       Glossary  EMAIL  LIVE!  LOCAL  SHOPPING  FREE ACCESS  CONTACT US    INTRODUCTION     Introduction   The AltaVista help pages enable you to get the most from your search experience. AltaVista Search is one of the most powerful tools on the Internet, and we are dedicated to helping you use its features to their maximum potential. The Quick Start guide below will help you get started searching in a matter of minutes. For more in-depth help, we have included pages explaining each area of AltaVista Search. From Web search and Advanced Search to news, shopping, discussion and more, each help page explains all the available functions in detail. If you cannot find what you are looking for in the help pages, try our list of Frequently Asked Questions. This list of common questions and answers is likely to contain the information you are looking for. If you have a question that is not answered by any of our documentation, please feel free to contact us. We will do our best to get you the answers you need as quickly as possible. Thank you for using AltaVista Search, the most comprehensive Web index available.       AltaVista Quick Start Search Guide   Search Function mona lisa Finds documents that contain either mona or lisa or any capitalized variant (Mona, MONA, liSA, Lisa). AltaVista ranks the results to show first the documents containing both words, close together, and near the top of the document. Mona Lisa Finds documents that have either Mona or Lisa but not any other capitalized variation. When you use a capitalized word, AltaVista assumes that you are only interested in an exact match. +mona +lisa Finds only documents that contain both words. "Mona Lisa" Finds documents that have the two words capitalized and found right next to each other. Placing quotation marks around any series of words turns them into a phrase and tells AltaVista that you are only interested in documents that have them in this specific order. +"Mona Lisa" -Louvre Finds documents that contain the phrase "Mona Lisa" but do not contain the word "Louvre" +Mona +Lis* Finds documents that contain Mona and any word starting with Lis. Use this feature if you are not sure how a word is spelled.

About AltaVista | Help | Contact Us | Advertise With Us Business Solutions | Job Openings | Press Room | Privacy | Terms Of Use | A CMGI Company Shopping | Money | News | Sports | Travel | Careers | Health | Entertainment