Our search engine now supports an extended command syntax that should help you narrow down results to only those documents that truly interest you.

Simple Queries

Just type a word that best describes the subject that interests you and click the Search button. Examples:

hotel

restaurant

Using '+'

Place a plus sign '+' immediately before a word to force its inclusion in search results. For example:

photo +beach

restaurant +steak

Using '-'

Place a minus sign '-' immediately before a word to force its exclusion from search results. For example:

computer -apple

music -rap

Using Double Quotes "

Place a word or phrase within double quotes to force the engine to search for that word or phrase exactly. If more than one word, the phrase will only match if the words appear exactly and in the same sequence within a document. For example:

"Ricky Martin"

"Banco Popular"

Using Uppercase Letters

Words with lowercase letters match words in either upper- or lowercase. If you use uppercase letters, only words with the same letters in uppercase will match.

universidad matches universidad, Universidad, UNIVERSIDAD and UnIvERsidad...

Universidad matches only Universidad.

Not Using Short, Frequent Words

Some short, very frequently used words such as the, of, a, el, la, las, los, uno, una, un, de, en, in, and... should not be used in queries because nearly every document in the database matches them. Using them will triger a document overflow, or will cause the search engine to ignore the word entirely. In general, you will want to rephrase your queries to avoid these words and perhaps use '+', '-', or '"' to achive better results. For example:

hotels in Puerto Rico

is better rephrased as just:

hotels

Spanish phrases can run notoriously long:

recetas de comida de navidad

is better rephrased as just:

recetas +navidad

Avoid Long Search Queries...

If you find yourself trying search queries with more than three words, chances are that your query is poorly formulated. Choose at most three words that best describe the subject that you are interested in.

Puerto Ricans Are Bilingual...

If you do not find anything using a query with English words and phrases, try it in Spanish! For example, to find information about beaches, you could try:

beach playa