What are Search Operators?
Unlike Google, which uses deep neural networks and machine learning to search, many of the databases we use for research do not operate with AI learning. In Google searches, we often use plain language to structure our searches, as it is able to interpret our meaning. The databases that we use for research are not capable of that analysis, so we need to tell the database how to interpret our keywords together, not as sentences, but as logic statements that computers can read.
For example:
- Google search: what is the weather today
- Search results will return results about the weather on today's date, in my location, even though I have not given it the date or location.
- Database search: what is the weather today
- Search results will return articles that contain any or all of the following words: what, is, the, weather, today
