Many of the rules for database searching are based on the principles of Boolean logic. Boolean logic refers to the logical relationship among search terms, and is named for the British mathematician George Boole.
So Internet search engines, use Boolean logic as one of the options to construct logical relationships among search terms. However the search engines have taken Boolean logic and have extended the rules well beyond the traditional practice of Boolean searching.
The major search engines use Boolean logic that consists of three logical operators:
*A few Internet search engines make use of the proximity operator NEAR. A proximity operator determines the closeness of terms within a source document. In Boolean Logic NEAR is a restrictive AND which means that the word NEAR puts restriction on the AND rule used by a search engine.
The closeness or proximity of the search terms is determined by the particular search engine. For example, NEAR in AltaVista (Power Search) means that the words searced for are within 10 words of each other...
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This file prepared and presented as an aid to help students understand the web. Send questions or comments to Royce Shook