Here are some tips for better results

- Yahoo! Help search doesn't search the Internet.

The purpose of the search box within the Yahoo! Help site is to help find answers your questions about Yahoo! features and services. When you enter a query in the Yahoo! Help search box, your search is limited to Yahoo! help articles and related content (e.g. tutorials). If you want to conduct a 'web' search, please visit http://search.yahoo.com.

- Where you are when you start a Yahoo! Help search determines the scope of the content searched

When you enter a query within the Yahoo! help site, where you are when you start the search determines the scope of the search. For example, if you are in the Yahoo! Mail Classic section of the help site and enter a query, your search is limited to content in the Mail Classic section. Alternatively, if you're in the Yahoo! Messenger 8 section of the help site when you enter a query, your search is limited to articles in the Messenger 8 section. Alternatively, if you enter a query in the search box located on the top level 'help central' page (http://help.yahoo.com), your search will be conducted across the entire help site.

- When you enter your query be as specific as possible and focus on keywords

Yahoo! Help uses a keyword-based search algorithm. This means that when you enter a query such as "How do I create a web page?", the search engine identifies, h'how', 'do', 'create', 'web' and 'page' as keywords and looks for help pages containing those keywords. The articles considered most relevant (and which show up at the top of the list of search results) are the articles with the highest number of keyword matches.

For the best results, we strongly recommend that you be as specific as possible when entering your query and focus on using distinctive keywords.

Good examples of queries that are specific and that include distinctive keywords:

• How do I create a web page?
• How do I use Yahoo! Address AutoComplete?
• How do I cancel my account?

Even better, eliminate the "How Do I" portion of the query altogether and reduce your query to just the distinguishing keywords:

• Create a web page
• Address AutoComplete
• Cancel my account

NOTE: Boolean operators like "AND", "NOT", and "OR" are not necessary. The search engine ignores them.

- Only include concepts relevant to the information you're trying to find.

If your question contains irrelevant concepts (keywords), the engine is less likely to succeed in answering your question. For example, this question includes irrelevant information: "I bid on a necklace on Yahoo! Auctions and then changed my mind and I no longer want it. How do I cancel my bid?" More effective versions are: "How do I cancel an auction bid?" or even "cancel auction bid".

- Spelling is important for a successful search.

If you aren't getting the results you want, double-check the spelling of your question.