Do you use BOOLEAN logic when searching the web?

[gar]

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.

.

[KEYTEEM]

NICE THREAD/POLL ,, i had no idea, thought when i seen the poll
that it was going to be about electronics talk.

[Salty72]

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?????

[gar]

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 (-).

.

[Salty72]

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/

[gar]

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.

.

[gar]

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.

.