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Basic and Advanced Searches (Overview)

The Search feature allows you to search across all Church Web sites, including the Gospel Library. Search is now located at the top of every page on the new LDS.org.

Basic Search

To perform a basic search, do the following:

  1. Click the word Search at the top of the page. This will open a new page with the word "Search" at the top of the page. (Or, you can simply place your cursor over the word Search—without clicking—and a small search window will appear.)
  2. Enter one or more keywords in the search field. If you want to search for an exact phrase, place the phrase in quotation marks.
  3. On the right of the search field, use the drop-down list to select the area of the site you would like to search. Please note that if you want scripture references to be included in your list of results, you must either select "Scriptures" in the drop-down list or use the "Filter by" option to refine your list of results (see step 5).
  4. When you are ready to search, click the blue Search button. This will display your search results as a list of links you can click. Note: Articles and talks by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will rank higher than articles by others, more recent content will rank higher than older content, and key pages on Church sites receive higher rankings.
  5. When your results are displayed, notice that the words "Filter by" appear on the right side of the screen. When you filter your results, you are choosing to see only a portion of the results. This feature can help you refine the search to find what you are looking for much more easily. For example, if you search "All Church Content" for a common term such as "repentance," you will receive thousands of search results. In this case, you could filter, or narrow, your list of results by the scriptures, meaning that you want to see the word "repentance" only when it appears in the scriptures. Or you could further filter your results by an individual volume of scripture, by an individual magazine, or by other smaller categories.

 

Advanced Search

The Advanced Search option allows you to limit your search to a specific range of dates or to specific authors. To perform an advanced search, do the following:

  1. Click the word Search at the top of the page. This will open a new page with the word "Search" at the top of the page.
  2. Enter one or more keywords in the search field. If you want to search for an exact phrase, place the phrase in quotation marks.
  3. On the right of the search field, use the drop-down list to select the area of the site you would like to search.
  4. Click the Advanced Search option. This will expand the search area to include the ability to specify a range of dates or particular authors. You can use the "By Date" option and not the "By Speaker" option, or vice-versa. You can also use both options in your search.
  5. To specify a range of dates under By Date, enter the dates in the From and To fields. You can do this by typing the dates in "yyyy/mm/dd" format or by clicking the calendar button next to each field to select the dates. For example, if you wanted to limit your search to a date range between April 1, 1999, and May 1, 2004, the From field would contain "1999/04/01" and the To field would contain "2004/05/01."
  6. To specify an author or group of authors under By Author, click the appropriate box to place a check mark in it. You can place a check mark in more than one box if you wish. To specify an author by name, click Author Name and then enter the name of the author in the field below. Separate the parts of the name with commas and do not include spaces (for example, Dallin,H.,Oaks). Also, if you are uncertain about the spelling of an author's name, you can use a question mark (?) or asterisk (*). For example, if you aren't sure whether the author's last name is spelled "Jensen" or "Jenson," you can enter "Jens?n" and your search results will include both Jensen and Jenson. If you are uncertain about the last few letters of an author's name, you can use an asterisk. For example, if you enter "Har*" you can receive results that include author names such as Harbertson, Hartley, Harmer, and so on.
  7. When you are ready to search, click the blue Search button. This will display your search results as a list of links you can click.
  8. When your results are displayed, notice that the words "Filter by" appear on the right side of the screen. When you filter your results, you are choosing to see only a portion of the results. This feature can help you refine the search to find what you are looking for much more easily. If you used the "By Author" or "By Date" option in your search, you can filter your results by a particular Church magazine.