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You can search for text or files on a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services site by using the search box. When you perform a search on a SharePoint site, your query searches only at the current site and any subsites below it. You cannot search across sites unless you search from the root site. You also cannot search for content outside of Windows SharePoint Services, even if the other site that you want to search is compatible with Windows SharePoint Services. For example, if you search from a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site that is on the same server as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, your search results will not include content from Office SharePoint Server. The search results will include content only from your Windows SharePoint Services site and any subsites below it.

Search for text or files on a site or in a list

Basics of search syntax

Search for text or files on a site or in a list

You can search for a specific word or phrase from any home page, Web Part Page (Web Part Page: A special type of Web page that contains one or more Web Parts. A Web Part Page consolidates data, such as lists and charts, and Web content, such as text and images, into a dynamic information portal built around a common task.), list, or library within your site by setting the search scope to This Site. You can also search for a specific word or phrase in a list such as a document library, task list, calendar, or custom list by setting the search scope to This List. If the site contains subsites, your search query may also return matching results if the query text is found in any of those subsites.

1. Go to the site page, list, or library from which you want to search.
2. Do one of the following:
   • To search the site and any subsites, set the search scope to This Site.
   • To search the current list, set the search scope to This List.
3. In the search box, type the word or phrase that you want to look for, and then click the Search button .

 Notes 

• The search box is limited to a maximum of 255 characters.
• The search results page displays the number of results that were returned for your search query and the amount of time it took to perform the search query. By default, search results are displayed by relevance. To sort the list of results by the date when the items were last modified, click View by Modified Date.
• When you search from a list, the search scope is set to This List by default, and results appear only for that list. To find text or files elsewhere on the site or subsites, set the search scope to This Site.

Basics of search syntax

• The search service automatically includes variations of words that are based on the base stem of the word, such as plurals. For example, a search for the word page also returns results for pages.
• You cannot use wildcard characters, such as the asterisk (*).
• The search service does not support Boolean functions such as AND and OR. However, you can include or exclude keywords by using the plus (+) or minus (-) sign in front of the keyword. For example, the query art + picasso would return a list of artwork only by Picasso.
• The search service automatically ignores common words such as the, it, and by, as well as single-digit numbers.
• The search service is not case-sensitive.
• Attachments to list items do not appear in search results.