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Searching the Ofwat website
If you are unable to find what you are looking for using the simple search. The advanced search helps you to refine your search strategy and obtain more relevant documents.
Enter the words you want to search for in the search query text box and use the options described below to make your searches more accurate.
Wildcard Searching
Wildcard searching allows you to find variations of words with the use of the asterisk ( * ) or the question mark ( ? ).
The asterisk ( * ) character allows you to find words with variations at end of a word.
For example:
swim* will find documents containing the words: swim, swims, swimmer and swimming
"wh* are" will find documents containing the phrases: where are, what are, why are
The question mark ( ? ) character allows you to find words with variations on a single letter within a word.
For example:
f?rm will find documents containing the words form, farm, firm, etc
This is particularly useful when you are searching for British and American variations of the same word.
For example:
Privati?ation will find documents containing the words: Privatisation and Privatization
Boolean Searching
The "Find" drop down box gives six options for submitting your search query.- "All of the words" option will find documents that contain all the words in the search query
- "Any of the words" option will find documents that contain at least one of the words in the search query
- "All of the words in the same sentence" option will find documents that contain all of the words within a sentence
- "All of the words in the same paragraph" option will find documents that contain all of the words within a paragraph
- "Exact phrase" option will find documents that contain the phrase
- "None of the words" will find documents that do not contain the words in the search query
Date Searching
Date searching allows you find documents that were published between two dates or on a particular date.
There are two date fields. The first date field defaults to a date 2 years in the past, and the second defaults to today's date.
The date fields must follow the format of DD/MM/YYYY. For example 9 June 2001 must be input as 09/06/2001
Using both date fields allows you to search for documents published between the two dates.
There are two ways to search for documents published on a particular date:- Enter the same date in both date fields
- Enter the date in the first field only and keep the second date field blank
If the first date field is blank then the date will be ignored and the search engine will search through all documents.
Searching Within Site Areas
If you are familiar with the Ofwat website structure, you may want to search within particular site areas which are listed within the listbox.
If you do not select an item in the listbox, the whole website will be searched for your search query. This may result in more documents being returned.
To select a site area, simply left-click on the site area name with your mouse. To select multiple site areas press the "Ctrl" key on your keyboard whilst clicking on the site areas you want to select.
Sorting Your Results
The "Sort results by" drop down box gives you four options to choose how you want your search results to be displayed:- Relevance - This is the default and displays documents that contain your search query the most, at the top of the list.
- Date ascending - This displays the earliest published document at the top of the list
- Date descending - This displays the most recently published document at the top of the list
- Alphabetical - This displays the search results alphabetically from A to Z
Number of Results Displayed
The "Display" drop down box allows you to decide how many results you want to display on each page. The options are:- 10 results per page
- 25 results per page
- 50 results per page
Refining Your Search Results
If your search query has returned more results then you expected, you are able to refine your results by searching within them using the search text box at the bottom of the search results page.
Any words that are submitted within the search text box at the bottom of the page are searched for within the original search results using the AND operator. This should give a shorter list of results to look through.
If you wish to refine your new search results further, ensure that the previous search terms remain in the search text box and add any new terms after these.
Limitations
The list below describes some of the limitations of the search engine:- Only Word(.doc), PDF and Web pages will be searched within.
- A maximum of 500 search results can be returned.
- Text within password protected PDF documents will not be indexed.
- The asterisk ( * ) wildcard needs at least two characters before it.
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