FAQ for Search Service

• Q1. 
  How to get started?

  You'll find the search box at the top of the pages on GovHK. Type a word or phrase (keyword) into the search box and click "Search" button. The related information will be listed in result page.

• Q2. 
  What are in the search result page?

  After you have entered a keyword and click the "Search" button, you will enter into a search result page. Apart from the search results, you will also see the following functions and supplementary information to help you get your information.

  • Did you mean
    Keywords relevant to your search term will be displayed here. One of these might help you narrow your results. Just click a link to try one of these searches.
  • Search results
    In this section, the matched keywords will be highlighted in red so that you can clearly identify the relevance of the results. The title, link and description of each result will be listed one by one so that you can search your preferred information.
  • Cached
    It links to a cached copy of the search result.
  • Text Version
    If a result links to an Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) or a commonly used Microsoft Office file, we give you the option to view the information in a text only version instead of downloading the file.
  • More results from (URL)
    Searches that particular site for pages containing the same keyword.
• Q3. 
  How are the results ranked and displayed?

  Results will be ranked according to their relevance to a particular query by analysing the web page text, title and description accuracy as well as its source and other unique document characteristics based on the algorithm built in the search system. A website can be ranked differently under different search terms and at different time.

• Q4. 
  How to search smart?
  • Narrow down your search
    More general terms will usually give a larger number of results, therefore please consider using specific words to describe exactly what you are looking for. Take a look of the following examples.
    
    For examples:
    If you are looking for the budget speech for 2012, you should try "budget speech 2012" instead of "budget speech".
    If you are looking for how to apply a driving licence, you should try "driving licence application" instead of "driving licence".
  • Do not search for a whole sentence
    The search engine will look up matched results based on the keyword input. The search engine will not understand what you are looking for if you input a whole sentence like 'What is the formation of acidic rain?'. Instead, you can input 'formation of acidic rain'.
  • Try keywords with same meaning
    For example, if you cannot find the information with "avian flu", you can also try to search "H5N1" or "avian influenza".
  • Use of space when searching with Chinese keywords
    Users need not to insert space between Chinese keywords. The search engine has a built-in tokenization function. If you insert space between Chinese keywords, the tokenization will be interrupted and the search result will be different.
  • Including specific words
    To include specific words, just type a plus sign "+" in front of each keyword. For example, input of "+Prevention + H5N1" will search for results with both the term "Prevention" and "H5N1".
  • Excluding specific words
    To exclude specific words, type a minus sign "-" in front of them. The pages not containing those words will show up in your results. For example, if you want to see pages about "Prevention" with no mention of "H5N1", search for "+Prevention -H5N1".
  • Either/Or
    If you are interested in two or more alternatives at the same time, use "+" and pair of "()" for the keywords. For example, search for "+(Prevention H5N1)". You will able to get the results including either "Prevention" or "H5N1".
  • Exact phase
    To search for an exact phrase, just put quotation marks around two or more words. For example, search for "to be or not to be" (typing the quotation marks into the box).

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Last review date: March 2012