LibGuides: Keyword Searching: Combining Keywords (2024)

FAQs

How do you search two keywords together? ›

Searching for multiple keywords

You can search for multiple keywords by connecting them with AND, OR, or AND NOT (known as Boolean operators). Narrows a search by requiring that both keywords are found. A search for guggenheim AND bilbao would find both "Museo Guggenheim Bilbao" and "Guggenheim Museum Bilbao."

The simplest and most effective way to search for something specific is to use quote marks around a phrase or name to search for those exact words in that exact order. For instance, searching for Joe Bloggs will show results with both Joe and Bloggs but not necessarily placed sequentially.

How to combine search terms: Using AND, OR and NOT. The three most commonly used operators are AND, OR, NOT.

Most databases allow you to specify that adjacent words be searched as phrases. Using quotation marks around search words is a common way to do phrase searching. By using quotation marks, you are telling the database to only bring back results with the words you typed in exactly the order you typed them.

Keyword stuffing is when someone attempts to manipulate their position in the search results by concentrating relevant keywords. Search engines can tell when keywords are abnormally distributed throughout the text or in a website's meta tags .

AND. AND will provide search results containing both or all of your keywords. Use this when you want results that contain two or more specific keywords.

How do you connect keywords? ›

Connecting Keywords: Boolean Operators

Once you have identified the keywords and phrases that describe your topic, the next step is to connect them in a logical way that the database will understand - this is accomplished with the use of Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT.

One concept to formulate effective search statements is to use Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT) to connect your keywords and concepts, like this: AND - narrows a search; Use to combine key concepts, for example: Water AND Pollution. OR - broadens a search; Use to add concepts, for example: Pollution OR Water.

This is done by putting a phrase or terms between quotation marks. For example, if you want to search a phrase like bending towards justice, search it as "bending toward justice" or, if you want to make sure the database searches political activism as a single term and not individual words, search "political activism."

Exact phrase searching limits your search to multiple terms in the precise order specified. For example, searching for "south east asia" will only find results that include those three words side by side and in that order.

Phrase searching allows users to search for articles containing a phrase rather than containing a set of keywords in random order. For most databases the phrase needs to placed in double quotation marks; e.g. "skin cancer". This is particularly useful if the words on their own are common.

Search for multiple words at the same time. Like the existing Ctrl-F but for many terms in the same web page. The default shortcut is Ctrl-Shift-X, but can be replaced in chrome://extensions/shortcuts.

With the OR operator you can combine search terms e.g. [“carbon dioxide” OR CO2]. Notice that OR should be typed with capitals. Search for title words. By default, Google searches for terms appearing anywhere in the page.