How to Search News Group Archives

Boolean language and site-specific search queries can make quick work of searching news group archives.

News groups have gotten much easier to search since their heyday in the mid-1990s. Once news groups were to the Internet what blogs are now -- widely visited electronic meeting rooms for specific subjects. Searches were done with arcane and inefficient software. For about the past decade, though, search engines have developed site-specific operators, making the retrieval of information from archived news groups a quick and painless task that requires a minimum of computer skills.

Instructions

1. Type the terms you're looking for into your search engine.

2. Use the same search engine as the news group website, if possible. For example, if your news group's website has a Google search form, use Google as the search engine.

3. Limit the search to the news group site. For example, if your news group has a Web address of group.website.com, you can add the phrase "site:*.website.com" to your search.

4. Enhance your search by adding date ranges and other Boolean operator, such as NEAR, AND, OR and NOT. Dates can be narrowed with search engines.

5. Email the administrator of the news group if you can and ask for help finding archived posts that might not be available online.

References

• CSA Illumina: Boolean Logic
• Search Engine Watch: Searching Newsgroups
• Media Awareness: How to Search the Internet Effectively
• Webliminal: Searching Email Discussion Group Archives and Usenet Newsgroup Archives

Resources

• Living Internet: Usenet Newsgroup Archives