Treat the simple 'Search for:' function like Google and you will not go far wrong.    If you want to find a particular company, enclose part of the name in double quotes like: "Business Support Kent".    Otherwise just enter a keyword such as: finance (no quotes needed) or a keyphrase such as: "business planning" (double quotes needed).  These powerful search facilities suffice for many casual users.

 

Double quotes are used to indicate a complete phrase, as in Google.    You can enter several keywords and keyphrases in the ‘Search for:’ box such as:    finance   "business planning".    The wild cards ‘*’ and ‘?’ are available, if you are familiar with these ‘Google’ facilities, but they cannot be used in phrases enclosed in double quotes.    You must enter a valid Post Office post town in the town box, but you can abbreviate it using wild cards - so bex* will find companies in Bexleyheath as well as Bexley.  Very often you will be searching for local businesses, so the 'In post town' box can be a great help.

 

The simple search accesses an index of company names, company profiles, and search keywords, plus an index of towns.    Companies matching your explicit criteria, and those criteria implied by the sub directory in which you are searching (such as District Council), are presented on the search results page.    The presentation of results is in order of relevance within the ranked 'Divisions' explained in the section immediately below, but you can also sort by company name or postcode.   These other two sorts do not classify by Division.   Take care to avoid specifying a search that will produce no results.    For example, do not search the Dover District Directory for companies in Sevenoaks - Dover's boundaries do not stretch that far!

What the Green Ticks and Red Crosses Mean
The small graphic symbols before each entry in the search results have the following meanings.

• The company has enhanced its entry and the data is completely up to date (two green ticks - First Division)
• The company has enhanced its entry, but the data is somewhat out of date (one green tick - Second Division)
  
• The company has not enhanced its entry and the data is completely up to date (no tick or cross - Third Division)
• The company has not enhanced its entry and the data is somewhat out of date (one red cross - Fourth Division)
  

 

 

 

Once you know the basics of directory searching, you might want to try the advanced search, which offers numerous options for making your searches more precise and for getting more specialised results.    You can search on a wide variety of items such as keywords and postcode - but you can no longer search on company profile.    This is because the profile gives a general 'unique selling points' description of a company and is not appropriate for detailed searching.    Keywords are the precise descriptors of a company's strengths, and give an advantage to companies that maintain accurate and up to date information in their entry.

 

To use the advanced search capability successfully, you need to know something about searching in general, and search operators in particular.    The standard operators AND, OR, NOT and (brackets) are available, as are the wild cards ‘*’ and ‘?’, and double quotes are used to indicate a complete phrase.    Here are some brief guidelines for the various fields on which you can search when you use the Advanced Search form.

 

Company Name  - use double quotes to enclose a meaningful part of the "company name", but leave out the double quotes if you want to use wild cards (* and ?); e.g. comp* nam? where you are unsure how company name is spelled

Offering these goods or services – if necessary, use AND, OR, NOT and (brackets) to attain precision, using double quotes and wild cards (* and ?) as explained under Company Name; e.g. (starting in business OR starting a business) AND international trade - if you want advice on starting up and are interested in exporting (avoid double quotes in complex queries)

With Postcode – wild carding is automatic

County/State/Region – select from drop-down; be aware that county data is only 95% reliable – some people refuse to recognize the existence of East and West Sussex when submitting county data, others refuse to recognize the disappearance of the ridings of Yorkshire!  ‘Near Kent’ comprises Kent, Essex, London (treated as a 'county' because of its special status), Surrey, East Sussex, and West Sussex;  ‘Greater South East’ covers Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, and Wiltshire as well as ‘Near Kent’;  ‘Rest of UK’ covers everywhere in the UK not covered by ‘Greater South East’

Country – select from drop-down;  ‘Rest of World’ covers everywhere not UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, or Germany

Number of Employees (Company Size) – minimum size is 1; use the same start and end value to get companies of that exact size

Only show those entries with a website URL – if you want to view websites, tick this box to exclude entries that have no website link
Within this specialist sub directory – select from drop-down; this is a quick way of searching sub directories without having to visit them explicitly