- To limit your results to a particular range of dates, or particular types of websites, click the More search options link to go to the Advanced Search page. Please note that only articles published on Boston.com and articles from The Boston Globe will be reliably searchable by date - our search engine does not know when other websites publish their articles, and so we file them under the time when they are indexed.

- If you're looking for a news story and find you're getting blogs and other web results, you can: click the "Boston Globe articles only" checkbox to search just stories published in the paper; click on the "Boston.com" tab to include updated news from the wires as well as Globe articles; or go to "More search options" and check the appropriate boxes to search the Globe and other news sites.

- To search precisely on a reporter's name, go to the Advanced Search page and use the "author" search box.

- To find a business, try clicking on the Business Listings tab above the search box. You can search Google's listings by name, category, or word associated with a business.

- To find videos, click on the Video / Audio tab above the search box. That's where we index video from Boston.com and local broadcasters, as well as podcasts and local talk radio, using technology that transcribes the words somewhat accurately.

Advanced Syntax
- Phrases: to search for a phrase, enclose it in quotes ("brazil in boston"). This is especially useful if one of the words in the phrase is common, such as 'in' or 'bob'.

- Exclude a word: to get results that exclude a word, put a - in front of it (saturn -car gives you articles about the planet, and saturn -planet focusses in on the car. )

- Wildcard: ? matches any one character.

- "OR": the search engine does not currently support an 'or' match mode. Try searching each word individually.