Using AND and OR

Using AND between your search terms says that each term is important and ALL the terms must be present in your search results. The more search terms you join with AND, the narrower and more focused your results will be.

To understand how AND narrows your search results, imagine buying coffee in a grocery store. Follow the example below to see how your search for coffee can become very narrow.

I want to buy coffee that is:

fair trade		many choices
fair trade AND organic		fewer choices
fair trade AND organic AND decaf		even fewer choices

 

Sometimes you want to use OR between search terms to find more results. Using OR between terms says that you would like ANY one of these search terms to be present in the search results.

This coffee-buying scenario illustrates using OR to broaden your search results.

I want to buy coffee that is:

Colombian OR Ethiopian		more choices
Colombian OR Ethiopian OR Kenyan		even more choices