Find at Least One of the Words search
You can tell Google to find pages with any of the words or phrases you
provide.
Advanced Search page: Type the words into the Find Results with At Least
One of the Words box.
Toolbar/home page: Type the words into the search box separated by OR.
The OR must be capitalized, or it will be ignored (and you’ll end up with an
AND search).
Syntax example: rodent OR racing
This example search isn’t terribly useful because you get a huge number of
pages, most of which are not related to rodent racing. They’re either related
to rodents or to racing. This technique is much more useful when you use
search phrases, such as “rodent racing" OR “racing rodents".
If you can’t remember what a particular search syntax is, here’s a quick way
to figure it out. Suppose that you forget that you use the OR operator to tell
Google to find any of the search words you’ve entered. Enter your search
words in the appropriate boxes on the Advanced Search page. (For example,
enter rodent racing in the Find Results with At Least One of the Words box.)
Then on the search results page, look at the search box at the top. Google
displays the search syntax used by the Advanced Search page for you:
rodent OR racing.
Find common words
Google and most search engines ignore certain common words — such as a,
the, and, where, how — and some single digits and letters. For instance,
search for King George I, and when the search results page appears, you see
this message: “I" is a very common word and was not included
in your search.
If you really need to include the omitted word or character, you can use two
methods to tell Google to include it.
Advanced Search page: Type the words into the Find Results with the Exact
Phrase box in the order you expect to see them in the search results. Or, use
the Find Results with All of the Words box and add a + (plus) sign immedi-
ately before the character or word that Google is ignoring.
BC4
Search Engine Optimization For Dummies, 2nd Edition
