Module 4: Searching the web - boolean searching task

I was previously vaguely aware of the boolean logic relating to internet seraches. It isn't something I've thought about it years but I remember back in the mid to late 90's it was much more common as it was the way to ensure a greater chance of accuracy in the hits.

My key words are red velvet cake.

Looking at what I want to achieve in my search - a recipe for Red Velvet Cake. The task is to think about the best way to search for this information using the following criteria:

the biggest number of hits relating to these key words
Type the words 'red + velvet + cake' into the Google search engine. This generates 1,270,000 hits.

information most relevant to what you ACTUALLY wanted to look for!
Type the words 'red + velvet + cake +recipe' into the Google search engine. This narrows the hits down to 96,800 hits.

information coming only from university sources
I used the Advanced Search functionality of Google for this one - searching on red velvet cake recipe site:.edu. This changed the game plan completely - and I was surprised that relevant hits actually came up (I mean come on, I am looking for a recipe!!). 814 hits were returned from eductional sites across the world.

I posted my findings on the forum and also found a wealth of information in terms of links and other people's experiences. It seems the key to getting what you want is to know how to look for it. It's interesting to see how small changes to search habits (restricting fields or sites) can have such a dramatic difference on number of hits and related information.