Using Phrases

When typing a phrase into a search engine, it does something that at first glance, seems illogical. Type in more than one word and you are bound to get results that look odd. Search engines consider each word individually, not considering how far apart those words are. They just return pages that contain all those words. While that can be helpful, it's not helpful if I'm looking for yogi tea and don't want a certain lovable bear drinking tea.

What I need to do is use quotes. Now my search could be "yogi tea" AND herbal. By including the quotes, I'm telling the search engine that these words must appear next to each other. The AND also tells the search engine that the word herbal must appear somewhere on the page.

Search engines are getting smarter and recognize common phrases. This means that you can type in a common phrase and have the search engine assume the quotes are there. If you don't want it to consider the search as a phrase, you may have to rearrange the words or put AND between the words.