Nesting Syndrome

It's easy to confuse search engines. You think you are clear, but remember that they are just a machine. They take you very literally.

It's All in the Brackets

To help the search engines interpret what you are searching for, just use brackets. Similar to math, the brackets help the search engine know how to combine things. Consider a search for a bread recipe. I want a bread recipe that contains raisins or nuts but not yeast. A search for this might look like

"bread recipe" AND (raisins OR nuts) AND NOT yeast

The quotes say that the words must appear together in this order. The brackets basically state two searches for us. This is like typing in the following two searches at once.

"bread recipe" AND raisins AND NOT yeast

"bread recipe" AND nuts AND NOT yeast

Mind Your ANDs and NOTs

Each search engine plays by different rules. Although we used AND NOT in the example above, some search engines use just the word NOT. Others use ANDNOT as one word. Try out the variations to see which gives you the results you are seeking. Each engine also has instructions on how to construct searches. Although hard to find and sometime difficult to follow, combined with the information on this site, you'll be able to master them with a bit of practice.