WebDexyHow it works
Understand the search language, the index and the order of results.
Start with a clear query
Use a few specific terms. The default AND mode looks for all terms; OR broadens the query. Put a phrase in double quotes to search words together. Use a minus sign before a term to exclude it. If you find too little, remove a filter or try a broader expression.
The WebDexy query language
Operators use a colon. Quoted values can contain spaces. Combine text with filters, for example climate site:example.org type:pdf. A filter narrows the search; a ranking boost changes the order.
"climate change" | Phrase |
solar AND energy | All terms |
solar OR wind | Either term |
energy -coal | Exclude a term |
site:example.org climate | Limit to a website |
type:pdf climate | Document type |
lang:de climate | Document language |
title:climate | Title field |
h1:climate | Main heading |
rights:CC-BY | Page-supplied rights metadata |
rating:General | Page-supplied rating |
How ranking works
Matching documents receive a relevance score. The score depends on the occurrence and importance of terms in titles, headings, descriptions, links and page text. In settings, you can adjust the weight of fields and preferred languages. A higher weight gives matching content more influence; it does not guarantee the top position. Domain diversity usually limits repeated results from one website. A site filter or “more from this domain” opens that website’s results.
From crawler to index
A crawler visits accessible web pages, follows links and retrieves documents. The content is parsed into fields such as title, headings, text, language and links. An index records which terms occur in which documents so queries can find candidates quickly. Searching consults this index rather than downloading the entire web for each request. Updates become searchable after processing and indexing.
Coverage and interpretation
An index is a changing selection of the web, not a complete or live copy. Pages can be missing, outdated, unreachable or excluded from collection. Snippets are extracts, not an endorsement. License and rating filters use metadata supplied by pages; they do not verify legal permission or safety. Read the original source before relying on it.