Poet's Corner

[Bird of Prey]

Ok, let's see what I can do here.


First off, the underscore " _ " adding this to your search will produce a small result as it will only grab those sites that used the underscore in conjunction with the search words referenced. Some designers do this on purpose to try and catch the traffic from those that include the underscore in their search term. I don't use it as a primary SE device.

The Plus sign " + " tells the SE to add the term to the search parameter. "party +hats" works the same as "party hats" in most engines.
The Minus sign " - " tells the SE to remove the term from the search results. "party -hats" will produce a list that has all things party...except party hats!

Whenever I'm searching on a multiple word phrase I wrap the phrase in quotes. Otherwise I will get results where the words in the phrase are merely near each other on a page. For example I could get a page ranked highly on the phrase party hats that had as the first few lines..."the girls couldn't get into the party... As they left the wind blew off their boyfriends hats.

Hope this helps!

The Bird of Prey