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IndustryArena Forum > Events, Product Announcements Etc > Polls > Do you use BOOLEAN logic when searching the web?

View Poll Results: Do you use BOOLEAN logic when searching the web?

Voters
58. You may not vote on this poll
  • Yes, I use it all the time, its the best!

    35 60.34%
  • No, what does it do, and how does it work?

    20 34.48%
  • Too complex for me!

    0 0%
  • I'm too old to learn that new fangled crap!!

    3 5.17%
Results 1 to 20 of 20
  1. #1

    Cool Do you use BOOLEAN logic when searching the web?

    Do you use BOOLEAN logic when searching the web with Google, or when searching for items in eBay?

    If not, your searching will be more productive if you do!

    BOOLEAN:
    A system of logic. It is used on the Internet in searching for resources.
    In its simplest form for example, entering "Web AND Page" as search criteria
    would tell the search tool to find resources that contain both the words
    both "Web" and "Page." Entering "Web OR Page" as search criteria would
    tell the search tool to find resources that contain both the words "Web"
    and "Page" or either word.


    Try searching eBay with the Logic Opperator "-new" , it will only show items that are NOT titled as new, and eliminate the flood of duplicate items from multiple vendors!

    Hope this helps in your searching efforts!
    Eric
    www.widgitmaster.com
    It's not what you take away, it's what you are left with that counts!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Posts
    12177
    Stolen from Wikipedia:

    "Boolean logic is a complete system for logical operations. It was named after George Boole, an English mathematician at University College Cork who first defined an algebraic system of logic in the mid 19th century."

    Considering we are in the 21st century I think your option; "I'm too old to learn that new fangled crap!!" is a bit out of time and place.

  3. #3

    Cool

    Quote Originally Posted by Geof
    Stolen from Wikipedia:

    "Boolean logic is a complete system for logical operations. It was named after George Boole, an English mathematician at University College Cork who first defined an algebraic system of logic in the mid 19th century."

    Considering we are in the 21st century I think your option; "I'm too old to learn that new fangled crap!!" is a bit out of time and place.

    OOps!
    Can't edit polls, so we are stuck with it!
    Eric
    www.widgitmaster.com
    It's not what you take away, it's what you are left with that counts!

  4. #4

    Cool How to Conduct an Advanced Internet Search

    How to Conduct an Advanced Internet Search


    To conduct an advanced search on the Internet, use the Boolean operators, such as "AND" and "OR," to make your search as specific as possible.

    Steps:
    1. Go to a Web search engine.

    2. To find documents containing an exact phrase, type the phrase, surrounded by quotation marks, into the search field. For example, typing 'fish sticks' (with the quotation marks) will return documents that contain the phrase 'fish sticks,' but not Web pages that contain only 'fish' or 'sticks.'

    3. To find documents containing a pair of words, but not necessarily together, type the words separated by the word 'AND' in all caps. For example, typing 'fish AND sticks' (without the quotation marks) will return Web pages that contain 'fish,' 'sticks' and 'fish sticks.'

    4. To find documents containing either one word or the other, type the words separated by the word 'OR' in all caps. For example, typing 'fish OR sticks' (without the quotation marks) will return documents that contain 'fish' or 'sticks,' or both.

    5. To exclude a word from your search, type the word you wish to exclude into the search field, preceded by the word 'NOT' in all caps. For example, typing 'fish NOT salmon' (without the quotation marks) will return only documents that do contain the word 'fish' and do not contain the word 'salmon.'

    6. To find documents that contain two words separated by 10 to 25 words, type the two words separated by the word 'NEAR' in all caps, into the search field. If your search expression is lengthy or complicated, use parentheses to separate the different parts. For example, typing 'fish OR sticks NOT (salmon OR trout)' will get you entries that have the words 'fish' or 'sticks' or both, but do not have the words 'salmon' or 'trout.'


    Tips:
    Check the directions for the search engine you're using. Some require very specific syntax.

    Some search engines allow the following symbolic substitutions for Boolean words: & for AND, | for OR, ! for NOT, and ~ for NEAR. But not all searches allow this, so if your query comes up blank, try using the words instead.

    Some search engines don't sup-port the Boolean words 'NEAR' or 'NOT.'
    www.widgitmaster.com
    It's not what you take away, it's what you are left with that counts!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Posts
    1
    By far the most usefull I have found is to add "-.com" to the end of a search when doing reasearch on a subject although a lot of comercial sites do have good info.

  6. #6

    Cool AND, OR, AND NOT, +, -, & NEAR

    AND, OR, AND NOT & NEAR
    BOOLEAN LOGIC
    Way to combine terms using "operators" such as "AND," "OR," "AND NOT" and sometimes "NEAR." AND requires all terms appear in a record. OR retrieves records with either term. AND NOT excludes terms. Parentheses may be used to sequence operations and group words. Always enclose terms joined by OR with parentheses. Which search engines have this? See +REQUIRE or -REJECT TERM and FUZZY AND. Want a more extensive explanation of Boolean logic, with illustrations?
    www.widgitmaster.com
    It's not what you take away, it's what you are left with that counts!

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Posts
    1498
    060528-1952 EST USA

    Do a Google search on "Wilson P. Tanner", then try 'Wilson P. Tanner'. There is a gross difference. Almost all the results of the double quoted string refer to my old psychology professor, and boss related to his visual and audio experiments on signal detectability.

    Google is pretty good these days in using the middle initial in the double quote version. However period or comma does not make any difference.

    Note that Google does not search old or maybe any US Patent Office patent files.

    Google is currently in the process of scanning virtually the entire library at the University of Michigan and a few other locations. In Google put in the search string "ann arbor news google scanning library" without single or double quotes for a newspaper article on the scanning project. Larry Page one of the founders of Google holds a Bachelor of Science degree in computer engineering from the University of Michigan with honors and a Masters degree from Stanford University.

    Try searching your own name thru Google using double quotes. See what happens.

    .

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    866
    I searched for my own name and found out I was murdered -- first hit.

    I don't like the way that google does double quotes. If you search for "I want this exact phrase -- consarn it", it shouldn't ignore the --

    I was just looking for something about servos the other night. It drives me crazy that I get a million hits for repair houses. They were spamming google search results before any of the crazy Russian identity theft joints even thought of the idea.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Posts
    925
    I miss the NEAR operator that I used to use in the old Altavista, Google does not support it.


    Pablo

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Posts
    1498
    060531-1818 EST USA

    Internet search engines are mostly word search mechanisms, and are not idea or information content based. They probably create an index of words with some prioritization and limited other algorithm schemes.

    The double and single quote of strings is probably one of the easiest means to eliminte a large number of unwanted sites. Of course this means searchers must be educated enough to know how to play with words to get to the material they are interested in.

    When you create a web site there is a lot of work to try to include words, and word sequences, into your discussion to make it easy for others to search and find you.

    In your web site always include your city and state, and maybe country somewhere. The important information on your main page (index page) is a written description of what your site is about. Pictures, .jpg files, are of no value because the search engine can not interpret the content, even if it has text displayed.

    Google problems:

    IN regular Google search for
    copper sheet ann arbor michigan
    This brings up ASAP Source as a local place
    change the string to
    copper sheet vendor ann arbor michigan
    and the result within the first 100 results does not show ASAP Source.
    Change vendor to supplier and the fourth major result is ASAP Source.

    Next go to Google MORE and pick LOCAL.
    Using the first string above there is nothing close to Ann Arbor.
    Add supplier to the string and there are no matches.

    Thus, Google is doing a poor job on their LOCAL search. Google does not like to hear your complaints on this subject.

    Try your own experiments.

    .

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    866
    Gar,
    I agree, Google has some serious deficiences. PeopIe have learned how to manipulate their search engine in various ways to put their site above the one that you actually want. It works incredibly well for finding academic papers. For other purposes, it can be very arduous.

    On a less serious note, I was hoping that Dilbert's search engine would be better, but first he got hit with the lawyerpult, and then Google tried to kill him by knocking the International Space Station out of orbit so it would crush his house. Now he's been hired back to his original job, which means the pointy haired boss is now in charge of his search engine, so there is no way it will be any good.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Posts
    276
    why do people use perenthasis -standard brackets ()- when they do searches

    does a question mark make a differance to the search,

    and why can you never find a web page that you know exists even when you type the name of the owner that appears several hundred times on the page -

    I really think the meta data used to disctribe the web pages needs to be better organised

    guess that is what happens when you create an open source repository for data and don't create rules for it's use.

    what happend to .com (being comertial) .org (being an organisation) and why is adult material not located on the xxx. instead of the www.

    just food for thought ???

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Posts
    1498
    060601-0713 EST USA

    Salty72:

    One of my web pages has the following string:

    "( + voltage relative to pin 7 )" without the double quotes.

    Using regular Google, and using double quotes outside of the parens I got one hit. This hit was not my site and did not include the + or parens. Thus, certain symbols are ignored. This probably means that certain symbols (I will include control characters here and all special symbols from 128 thru 255) are ignored in the search engine indexing operation. Does it also mean that text within parens is ignored? Probably not based on another experiment. By knowing that parens are ignored in string searches, then it is reasonable to assume parens easily could be used for some other purpose.

    The logical functions described by such words as AND, OR, NOT, NOR, NAND, XOR are used in logical equations to perform logical operations.

    If I have the logical equation

    "X" = "not A" OR "not B" AND "C",

    then does this equation mean:

    X is true if the combination of "not A" OR "not B" is true; and that truth is ANDed with a C that is true.

    Or does it mean:

    X is true if "not A" is true; OR the result of the combination of "not B" AND C is true.

    These two different meanings can be uniquely defined by
    X = C AND ( not A OR not B )
    X = not A OR ( not B AND C ) .

    Note at least some of the search engines want the logical operators to be in caps.

    I can not experimentally prove that Google is following these rules. So from a Google point of view I do not know what parens are doing, if anything.

    Further I am finding that Google is not fully indexing pages.

    Why you can not find a particular site or page may be because the site or page is too new, or not fully indexed.

    In contrast I now tried a search on MSN for the string
    "( + voltage relative to pin 7 )"
    the parens and + sign were ignored. There were two results. One on my web site and the other on LINEAR.COM . Under Google Linear was found, but not my site.

    Next I tried the following string on both Google and MSN:

    ("n. p. psytar" OR "ltek industries") AND "ann arbor"

    The ORed elements are in of themselves mutually exclusive. Meaning nothing in any N. P. Psytar source will reference LTEK, and nothing in any LTEK source has a reference to N. P. Psytar. But both are common to ANN ARBOR.

    Also tried

    "n. p. psytar" OR ("ltek industries" AND "ann arbor")

    Neither Google or MSN gave any clearcut indication of what the parens are doing. I can not conclude the parens are doing as I would expect.

    So do whatever seems effective for you.

    .

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Posts
    126
    NICE THREAD/POLL ,, i had no idea, thought when i seen the poll
    that it was going to be about electronics talk.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Posts
    276
    from what i have observed if you place a domain within the () then google seams to try to find the free text before the (), within the ().

    DID that make any sence?????

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Posts
    1498
    060601-2025 EST USA

    Salty72:

    I ran the following two search strings in Google and they appear to be equivalent:

    RS232 (beta-a2.com)
    RS232 "beta-a2.com"

    However, the following two are not equivalent:

    (Wilson P. Tanner) (University of Michigan)
    "Wilson P. Tanner" "University of Michigan"

    The search engine people need to provide clear definitions of their functions, and there should not be ambiguity of symbols and functions. There should be a very good reason to have "-" and (-) equivalent under some circumstances and not others. Without further information I see no good reason to waste the normal functionality of (-).

    .

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Posts
    276
    interesting date time group [060601 - 2025 EST USA] when we want to specify the DTG
    we use 021926KJUN2006 this is
    2nd day of the month
    7:26pm
    time zone K (GMT+11)
    June is the month
    2006 is the year

    back to the () issue I think you are right each search engine needs to specify what &, -, +, "text here" etc... do for you ......If anything,,

    here you go....i found "Searching Google the Basics"
    http://www.google.com/help/basics.html

    "advanced search" +google
    http://www.google.com/help/operators.html

    how to correctly search the internet [no special doo-dads added]
    http://vlib.iue.it/history/search/

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Posts
    1498
    060602-0615 EST USA

    Salty72:

    My date-time code provides a monotonic function. Also if you always use standard time it remains monotonic, and it is more logical if midnight is 0000 and the start of the the day. This is a technique I have used for a very long time.

    Google in their help is really incomplete in their description of search logic.

    Your third reference, http://vlib.iue.it/history/search/ , made mention of Google Local and indicated that it may require payment to be listed. Experimentation indicates that at least some sites are listed without payment. It is not clear what determines listing.

    This morning I ran the following Google search test:

    "ltek industries" OR "N. P. Psytar"

    These are mutually exclusive sites and the results looked good for the OR operation, but should also be found with the XOR operator.

    It appears that Google does not recognize the logic operator XOR because its substitution in the above search resulted in nothing.

    .

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Posts
    1498
    060602-1053 EST USA

    Another experiment on Google. The reason for using Tanner as a test search is that it produces relatively few hits, but enough, to gets some useful information.

    Search for

    "Wilson P. Tanner" "University of Michigan"

    My result was 13 hits displayed.

    Then add one or more of (-.org) (-.edu) (-.gov)

    My result was 3 and excluded my .com site probably because I have one of the above extensions as a reference in my site.

    .

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
    Posts
    2
    Quote Originally Posted by unterhaus View Post
    Gar,
    I agree, Google has some serious deficiences. PeopIe have learned how to manipulate their search engine in various ways to put their site above the one that you actually want. It works incredibly well for finding academic papers. For other purposes, it can be very arduous.
    Sure, manipulations with search engines will reveal everything including plagiarism issues which is dangerous when you are writing, for example, dissertation paper.

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