City of Fort Lauderdale Site Search Tips

This search engine will help you find documents on this web site. Here's how it works: you tell the search engine what you're looking for by typing in keywords, phrases or questions in the search box. The search service responds by giving you a list of all the active web pages in our index relating to those topics. The most relevant content will appear at the top of your results.

How to perform a normal search:

1. Type your keywords in the search box.
2. Click the Search button to start your search.

Here's an example:

1. Type beach in the search box.
2. Click the Search button (or press the Enter key).
3. The results page will show you numerous pages related to beach (including beach, beaches, beachfront, beachwear, etc.).

Don't worry if you find a large number of results. Even though the number of results is large, the most relevant content will always appear at the top of the result pages. To narrow or expand your search, perform an Advanced Search.

How to perform an advanced search:

1. Click the Advanced Search button - the page will then reload and display advanced search options.
2. Type your keywords in the search box.
3. Select the type of search you want to perform.
4. Click the Search button (or press the Enter key).

Free Text:

. This is the same as performing a normal search (see above).

Exact Phrase: finding an exact match:

. If you want to find an exact phrase, select the Exact Phrase option.

Example: Typing fire chief and selecting the Free Text option (normal search) will find matches for fire and for chief, together or alone, in any order; selecting the Exact Phrase option will produce matches only for fire chief, together, in that order.

Match ALL Words:

. To make sure that all of the words in your search topic are searched for, select the Match ALL Words option.

Example: To find pages for a festival with blues but not other festivals, select this option.  The search results will include only those pages that contain festival AND blues.

Match ANY Words:

. Select the Match ANY Words option to look for results containing ANY word in your search topic.

Example: By typing mayor commission, your search topic and selecting Match ANY Words, the search results will include pages that contain mayor AND commission.

Other search rules:

. Searches are case insensitive.

Example: Searching for Beach will also match lowercase beach, uppercase BEACH and even BeAcH.

. To hide the advanced search options, click on the Normal Search button.