Most search engines allow for the refining of a search by using certain Boolean Logic Operators to include and exclude various words and phrases. The "NOT" (always capitalize in almost all search engines) excludes a word(s) and/or phrase(s) from each other. AltaVista uses the exclusion "AND NOT" instead of just the "NOT" If one orders "eggs and not ham" at a cafe, one could gets only "eggs" on the plate, but no "ham". Hence, one gets pages with "eggs" and excludes all pages than mention"ham".

OK! OK ! OK ! ! For example, a search for "eggs" and not "ham" would give web pages mentioning "eggs" and excluding all pages mentioning "ham" as the following pages shows. Click on AltaVisa Advance Search to see the results.

Notice only "eggs" and no "ham" went into the search box and ranked "eggs" for its importance. However, the Boolean expression box contained both "eggs" and "ham" and the Boolean Logic Operator "AND NOT" (remember AltaVisa requires "AND NOT"), so only the word "eggs" appears on a web page listed in the results. Notice on the last page near the bottom. the word "eggs" appeared on 768,958 web pages. But on the first page of the results for eggs without ham on the web pages appeared only 319,728 times. Again that is only about half the pages.

One should exclude as many items as space will allow. A good search will only contain about a hundred items when complete. Learn to ask for just what you want.

One more page was added just for fun. Click on AltaVisa Advance Search to see the results. As the following pages show, I wanted just one "egg" so I ended up with 320,486 out of 1,127,363 egg pages.