[This article was copied from the Voyager Wiki.]

The easiest way to create canned searches is to perform the search in WebV, copy the url, and edit the elements as needed. For example:

This is a canned search for the term chickens anywhere in the record with 25 records per page and results sorted by date (newest to oldest)
http://catalog.thslc.net/vwebv/search?searchArg=chickens&searchCode=GKEY%5E&searchType=0&recCount=25&sortBy=PUB_DATE_DESC

This is a canned search for the terms rats AND chickens anywhere in the record with 25 records per page and results sorted by author
http://catalog.thslc.net/vwebv/search?searchArg=rats+chickens&searchCode=GKEY%5E&searchType=0&recCount=25&sortBy=AUTHOR

The elements in the search URL are:

Base URL
searchArg
searchCode
searchType
recCount
sortBy

The only elements required are base URL, searchArg, searchCode, and searchType
The optional elements are recCount and sortBy.

The base URL for your WebV instance
http://www.your.edu/vwebv/search?

The term(s) to search
searchArg=

If you are going to use more than one term, use a + (plus sign) between each word: rats+chickens

The index to search
&searchCode=

This can be any search code from System Admin.  Remember that you can indicate browse, relevance, automatic AND, or automatic OR.
+ Indicates browse search type.
* Indicates relevance search type.
^ Indicates to insert an AND operator between the strings in a search.
| Indicates to insert an OR operator between the strings in a search

For example:
GKEY^* = Keyword anywhere where terms are automatically ANDed and sorted by relevance

The search type
&searchType=

Search Type (Number)
Quick (0)
Basic (1)
Advanced (2)
Subject (3)
Author (4)
Course Reserve (5)

Unless you are going to include limits from the Advanced Search Page, stick to Quick (0) or Basic (1) searchType

Records per page
&recCount=

Best option is to use your default.

Sort order
&sortBy=

Your options are:
AUTHOR
TITLE
PUB_DATE
PUB_DATE_DESC
RELEVANCE