Guide to Advanced Search Operators

Below you will find instructions on how to utilise the advanced search operators when doing searches on Gimko. Be sure to construct the search characters correctly or you may end up with unexpected results

So you understand how a standard search works, it is briefly explained below.

Standard Search

If you run a search for "jordan auto gold" (without the quotes), this means that all these words MUST show up in the search query, however they can be contained anywhere in the text found.

For example, it would find items with titles such as the below:

  • 1999-00 UD Michael Jordan Auto Gold
  • 1999-00 UD Auto Michael Jordan Gold
  • 1999-00 UD Auto Gold Michael Jordan

Now that you understand how standard searching works we will move onto using advanced search operators.

Advanced Search

-

A leading minus sign (or hyphen) tells the system to not include this word in any of the results.

Note that this operator cannot be used simply by itself; meaning you cannot run a search with all words preceded by a minus sign such as "-jordan -lebron -durant -kobe"; this will NOT return everything minus the excluded terms, it will return an empty result.

Examples:
  • kevin durant -box
  • kevin durant -box -packs

The first example will find all kevin durant cards minus ones that have the word "box" in the title; the second example will also exclude results that contain the words "packs".

“ ”

Text that is enclosed within doubles quotes will search for that exact text; without enclosing words within double quotes all words are still required, however they may show up anywhere in the item title; if you enclose them in double quotes then they have to show up in the exact way you put them.

Examples:
  • "lebron james auto"
  • kevin durant "auto patch"

The first example will only finds items that has the text "lebron james auto" in that order; it will NOT find titles such as "lebron james patch auto".

The second example will find all kevin durant cards that have "auto patch" in the title, it will match "2007-08 kevin durant auto patch" or "kevin durant gold auto patch" but not "kevin durant autograph patch".

( )

Parentheses work to allow you to run searches for any of the words within the parentheses, but at least one of the words must be found for it to be included in the results.

Examples:
  • kevin durant (auto,autograph,autographed,patch)
  • (durant, kobe, jordan) (auto,autograph,autographed,patch)
  • auto ("kevin durant", "kobe bryant", lebron james)

The first example will find all kevin durant cards that have ANY of the terms auto, autograph, autographed or patch in the title; one or more of these terms MUST be included in the title for the result to be returned.

The second example will find all any durant, kobe or jordan cards that have ANY of the terms auto, autograph, autographed or patch in the title; one or more of these terms MUST be included in the title for the result to be returned.

The third example will return all results that have auto in the title as well as either "kevin durant", "kobe bryant", "lebron" or "james".

Words can be separated with either a space or a comma, however multiple words MUST be enclosed with quotes like kevin durant & kobe bryant have been or they will be treated as separate words.

Please note that nesting of parentheses is not currently supported; ie: (durant, kobe, jordan (auto,autograph,autographed)).

*

The asterisk character acts as a wildcard character, but can only be used at the end of a word. Words will match if they begin with the text preceding the asterisk operator.

Examples:
  • auto*
  • (durant, kobe, jordan) auto*

The first example will simply put, find all autograph cards. It will find all cards containing a word starting with "auto"; so it will match against item titles that have the word "auto", "autograph" or "autographed".

The second example works the same as the first, but using the parentheses characters in conjunction with the wildcard operator it will only find autograph cards of Durant, Kobe or Jordan.

Some Notes

Note that using the minus sign in conjunction with double quotes will not work; however you can use them in the same search string, just not together.

Examples:
  • kevin durant auto -"non auto"
  • "kevin durant" auto -patch

The first example will not work as expected and you may get unexpected results; the second example will work as expected as you can use them in the same search string, just not together.

These advanced operators can be used on any item search field on the site, you don't have to be on the advanced search page to use them, however please note that they can only be used when searching for items and will not work on the buyer search, seller search or store search pages.