Capitalization:
Only capitalize a word or words that you are sure would be stored in a page that way. (proper or place names) Search words must match exactly if they have any capital letters or accent characters. Lowercase search words will match any capitalization.

Quotation Marks:
Place double quotation marks (") around words that you expect to see right next to each other. Words connected by punctuation, including URL's, are treated the same way. For example, "every other day" and every-other-day are both treated as a single phrase in a search.

Plus Sign (+):
Place a plus sign in front of any word that must appear in any page that AltaVista locates for your search.

Minus Sign (-):
Place a minus sign in front of any word that should not appear in any page that AltaVista locates for your search. This is most helpful when you get several responses during your search that you did not expect or want.

Spacing:
Do not place any space between the + or - sign and the word you wish to search (or not search as the case maybe), but be sure to place a space before the + or - sign.
A string of letters or numbers that are separated by a space or punctuation are treated as individual words. (USA is a single-word phrase search)
Placing a hyphen or period between words, numbers or letters will cause a multi-word search. (U.S.A. is a three-word phrase search)

Wildcard Uses (*):
The wildcard is useful in searches with variant spellings. Note: AltaVista does require at least 4 characters before the *.

Indexing Punctuation:
AltaVista does not index punctuation.