How to Use Search Tools

Simple Search Use Simple Search to search for one or two keywords or a single phrase only. You'll find it at the top of every page on IDC.com and the Insights company web sites. Simple Search allows you to query all available published research on IDC.com, including proceedings from events. It does not include Event details, analyst profiles, or product fact sheets. Simple Search looks at the whole document. Searching Tips: Words separated by spaces or commas have "AND" inserted automatically between them. Documents matching your query will have ALL words in them. Phrases must be encapsulated by quotes. Full or partial document numbers can be used. The search applies a "contains" rule for the number. For example, if you enter 1234, all documents with a document number containing those digits in that order will be returned. The default is to search English. Change to the desired language or All languages as appropriate. Examples: "IT Spending" will look for the exact phrase, semiconductor telecom will look for both semiconductor AND telecom Advanced Search Use Advanced Search to build complex queries, find special content, define date ranges or languages, or concentrate your search on specific IDC or Insight company research. You'll also find it at the top of every page on IDC.com and the Insights company web sites. Using Advanced Search 1. Select the appropriate Search Type button. The Research + Events button is the default selection. Choose from: Research + Events: Use this when you want to search all research documents and events. Tables + Figures: Use this when you want to search just the text contained in table or figure titles or in table cells. Search results will show the titles of each table and figure that match your query with a direct link to the parent document. Market Forecasts: Use this to narrow lists of IDC Forecasts by market sector or by available forecast date ranges. 2. Use the drop-down menus of All Words, Any Words, Exclude Words, and Exact Phrase for each field into which you enter keywords. This will indicate how you want your keywords to be interpreted by the search engine. All Words: Keywords are separated by an implicit AND; documents matching your query will have ALL words in them. Any Words: Keywords are separated by an implicit OR Exclude Words: Keywords that must NOT be included Exact Phrase: Keywords are grouped with implicit quotations 3. If searching Research + Events or Tables + Figures, enter search criteria in the Keywords fields. Tips for entering keywords: Spaces, commas, and hyphens are ignored unless they are part of a quote, and then they are treated as text for exact match. If you use operators in your text (such as the words "AND", "OR", "NOT"), they will be ignored by the search engine and replaced in the query with one appropriate to your selection in the drop down menu (AND in the case of All Words). If you place them within quotes, they are treated as text for exact match (ex: "IBM and HP") will return that exact phrase. Two text strings encapsulated by quotes are treated as separate matches UNLESS you have selected "exact match"; in that case they will be concatenated into one phrase for the search. If you need to search for two separate exact phrases, you can also use two separate lines in the interface. See item #8 for searching Market Forecasts. 4. Select whether to search the full document or a particular section of the metadata. Full Document is the default selection for a Research + Events search. Choose from: Full Document Document Number Document Title Abstract Analyst Last Name Service Name In a Tables + Figures search, you may choose between the default of Full Table and Figures or Tables and Figures Title. 5. Select your Date Range options. The default date range is 12 months. IDC research is available online for only 18 months. Insights company documents are available longer; the duration varies by company. 6. Select your Preferences options. Use these fields to determine how your results will be presented and where you want the search engine to look for your results. Sort: Sort your results by Relevancy or Date. Results: Determine the number of results shown per page, e.g.10, 25, 50, or 100. Language: Select the language in which to search for results. The default is English. Company: Select the company in which to search for results. Search Within: Select the realm in which to search for results, e.g. My Research (only the research that you have purchased*) or All Research. Save Preferences*: Click this check box to make the selections in the drop down menus your default choices. You must be logged-in to limit the search to My Research or to save search preferences. 7. Select your Narrow Results By options. Use the Narrow-By menus to focus your results by Region or Content Type, Topics, Published Research, or Analysts. A comprehensive taxonomy of site topics may be downloaded here, in PDF format. IDC.com Site Topics Taxonomy 8. If searching Market Forecasts, select your input criteria. The Market Forecasts search is a "browse" search, and you select your criteria from drop-down lists. Market Sector; the market sector you choose determines the list for the Focus Area Focus Area; the list of focus areas is the same as the Browse Categories in the research template. Forecasts Date; you select the end year for the forecast - the drop-down list generated will contain the latest year of a forecast. Follow steps 5-7 to fill in the rest of the advanced search options. Market Forecasts are not available in advanced search for the Insights companies (the Insights companies do not publish a separate document type for market forecasts). 9. Select the START button to run the search. The results set will be shown on a new Search Results page. Search Results If you have Relevancy selected in your sort preferences, your search results will be sorted with the most relevant documents at the top of the list. Relevancy Rules: Keyword density: The more instances of keyword match within the document, the higher its rating of relevancy. For example, a search with the keyword "forecast" may return two documents with the same number of pages published on the same date. The one that mentions "forecast" 20 times will have a higher relevancy in the search results than the one that mentions it 15 times. Publish date: Higher relevance is given to things published within the last 93 days (3 months); things published between 94 and 186 days (4-6 months) are next in relevancy. Worldwide in title: Documents with the word "worldwide" in their title have a higher relevancy. Managing Results From the Simple Search results page, you can directly edit your search criteria in the text box and click Search again. From the Advanced Search Result page, you can redefine your search criteria by clicking on Refine Search; this returns you to the Advanced Search page from which you can launch a new search. You can refine the current search by using the Narrow-By menus on the result pages to quickly focus your results. You can choose to narrow your search in the areas of: Technology Geography Document Type Author Saving Searches Every query may be "saved" for running again at a later date using the "Save This Search" link in the Search Results box at the top of the page. Your query will be saved to your Bookcase in its present format with a title you assign. You must be logged in to save a search.