About searching
You can search for individual decisions using the search box above or on the homepage, using details such as decision-number, broadcaster, name of the complainant, name of the programme, the year of the decision, the Standard involved (eg.privacy) or any other key words.
By default the search engine tries to locate pages which have exact matches for all of the words entered in your search query. If that fails, it then tries to locate pages which contain any words in your search query. If that happens a short message is displayed at the top of the search results indicating this has been done.
In addition, there are several ways to modify the default search behaviour.
phrase search
The search engine supports three types of phrase search.
To match an exact phrase, use quotes around the phrase
Example: "XYZ morning show"
To match a near (within a couple of words) phrase, use square brackets [around the words]
Example: [XYZ morning show]
To match a far (within several words) phrase, use braces { around the words }
Example: {XYZ morning show}
+ and - qualifiers
If you add a + immediately before a word that word is required to be on the page.
If you add a - immediately before a word that word is required to not be on the page.
Example: +XYZ -morning
* wildcard
If a query word ends with a * all words on a page which start the same way as that query word will match.
Example: broadcast* will seach for broadcasts, broadcasting, broadcaster, etc.
? wildcard
If a query word contains a ? any character will match that position.
Example: b?g will search for big, bog, bag, beg, etc.
boolean search
You can use the following boolean operators in your search: AND, OR, NOT. These operators MUST be in capital letters.
Example: (contact AND us) OR (about AND us)
All of these techniques can be combined: +alway* -ne??r*