Helpful tips to find what you're looking for with AOL Search.
About AOL Search
See what search results you'll get with AOL Search.
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Search the Web, block unwanted pop-ups and have easy access to your AOL email.
Tips to help your search:
- Select your search terms carefully. Use specific, descriptive words instead of general ones. For example, searching for blueberry pancake recipes instead of recipes increases your chances of finding blueberry pancake recipes.
- To find an exact phrase, put quote marks around your search terms. For example, use "Star Wars" to find content for the film. You can also use hyphens to connect a phrase such as brother-in-law.
- To exclude specific words in your search, type a minus sign (-) in front of the search term. For example, to find content about vegetables with no mention of broccoli, search for vegetables - broccoli. Make sure to include a space before the minus sign (-), but not after.
- To find content for two or more topics of equal interest, use OR in between your search words. For example, to find information on either Ibiza or Tenerife, search for Ibiza OR Tenerife.
- If you don't get any results with search words, try using different words with the same meaning.
- You do not have to worry about capitalisation when entering search terms. Search does not differentiate between upper-case and lower-case letters.
- You do not need to use "and" between words in your search. Search automatically inserts "and" between words separated by a space.
Use Advanced Search to Control Your Search Results
You can use the Advanced Search feature to get more precise results or control over the results:
Using Advanced Search, you can:
- Include or exclude specific words in your search results.
- Include or exclude specific Websites or domains in your search results.
- Search for words anywhere on the page, in the title, text, URL or links.
- Specify language or Websites that you would like to see in your search results.
- Specify how long ago the information has been updated in your search results.
Using the Settings feature
As this is a new feature for AOL search, here are answers to some common questions you might have:
Q: I can't work out why I have no results in my search.
A: Depending on what your query is for, this may be due to SafeSearch. You may be seeing a message telling you that Safe Search is on. To change this, click on the Settings link, and select "No filtering". Then save the page and re-run your search. You should get results.
Q: The safe search indicator tells me that safe search is off on the web results, but when I run the same search on images it shows a green button and tells me it's on - I've not changed my settings, so why is this happening?
A: This is because you have the moderate filter on; it's filtering the images, but is not applying any filter to the web results. We reflect this in the indicator. You have to switch it off completely if you don't want to filter the image results. You can do this by clicking on the settings button.
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