How to Use Search

Searching the ADB.org website is generally a simple task: just type whatever comes to mind in the search box, hit "Enter" or click on the magnifying glass icon, and the search engine will return content relevant to your query.

These are just a few basic guidelines to follow when searching the site:

• Almost every word matters. Generally, all the words you put in the query will be used, except very common words, such as a, an, and be. These words are known as "stop words" and are usually ignored in searches.
• Search is never case sensitive. Searching for employment is the same as searching for Employment.
• No punctuation. Punctuation marks are usually ignored in searches, except in popular terms like ASEAN+2 that include punctuation marks.
• Synonyms and acronyms expand your search. Do not be surprised if the search engine replaces your terms with synonyms or acronyms in order to expand the search. This is normal and is done to provide you with better results.
• Searching is not always absolute. A particular word might not appear on a page in your search results if there is sufficient evidence that the page is relevant. For example, the query address of the Japan office of the Asian Development Bank will return the Japanese Representative Office (JRO) page, even though that page does not include the word address.

Search tips

• Keep it simple. When looking for a particular document, just enter its title, or as much of the title as you can recall. Most often, good simple search terms are enough to find the document that you need.
• Consider how the page you are looking for will be written. Use the words that are most likely to appear on the page. For example, instead of searching for the effect of ADB operation on developing countries, look for impact of ADB.
• Be as concise as possible, but no more than that. The goal of each word in a query is to focus it further. Since all words are used, each additional word limits the results. If you limit too much, you will miss a lot of useful information. The main advantage to starting with fewer keywords is that, if you don't find what you need, the results will likely give you a good indication of what additional words are needed to refine your results on the next search. For example, energy specialist vacancy will likely give more specific results than vacancies and will likely give better results than energy specialist employment post in the Asian Development Bank.
• Choose descriptive words. The more unique the word is, the more likely you are to get relevant results. Words that are not very descriptive, like document, website, company, or info, are usually not needed. Also remember to make use of the proper terms as used in the Asian Development Bank. While we try to keep organization-specific jargon to a minimum, the chances of getting highly relevant results become higher when using proper context-specific terms. For example, instead of looking for poor countries, it is better to search for developing countries.
• Try other terms. If a particular search term fails to give you the documents you are looking for, try other synonyms or more general words. If you still cannot find the right documents, let us know so we can try to help.

Using filters

Refining your search is now enhanced by the use of filters. This allows you to further define a search by focusing on a particular category. Here are additional filters added to the search function.

• By Type: This lets you filter your search on the kind of document you are looking for, whether it’s a project document, a publication, a news release, or a video, etc.
• By Country: The filter by country feature allows for a more precise search of topics directly related to a particular country. Looking for the latest news on education in India should start by filtering your search to cover content related to India.
• By Language: ADB.org also translates some of its content to select languages. You can filter your search based on language to get a more accurate result.
• By Year: This filter helps narrow down your search results within a particular year. For instance, choosing 1990 will return only content dated that year.

Providing feedback

Improving the effectiveness of the ADB.org site search is a continuous process, and while we have explored different avenues to ensure that we provide you with the most relevant results, there is always room for improvement. All searches made through this site are constantly recorded and monitored to serve as the basis for further improvements to providing search results. We would, however, appreciate feedback on the quality of our search results and suggestions on how we can further improve our site search. Please send feedback to the ADB webmaster.