Combining Keywords

Selecting keywords may seem easy, and frequently it is. However, let’s explore how it can get more complicated—and work better.

The following may get a bit confusing and complex, but if you learn this, finding good information on the web will be much easier.

Boolean logic grew out of mathematics. It uses "operators" to make items relate to each other in different ways.

Boolean Operator AND

Putting the word AND between keywords makes a search engine find documents that have all the keywords. AND allows you to narrow your search. By using AND you get fewer but better hits.

Note: AND (and OR on the following pages) are capitalized here to help make things clearer. Normally you do not need to capitalize them, although Google does require that OR be capitalized.