Is there such a thing as search engine math? You bet and this piece below does a nice job at explaining how this goes down.

Forget power searching. Don’t worry about learning to do a “Boolean” search. All most people need to know is a little basic “search engine math” in order to improve their results. Come learn how to easily add, subtract and multiply your way into better searches at your favorite search engine. The information below works for nearly all of the major search engines.

Be Specific

Before learning math, it’s a helpful reminder that the more specific your search is, the more likely you will find what you want. Don’t be afraid to tell a search engine exactly what you are looking for.

For example, if you want information about Windows 98 bugs, search for “Windows 98 bugs,” not “Windows.” Or even better, search for exactly what the problem is: “I can’t install a USB device in Windows 98,” for example. You’ll be surprised at how often this works.

Using The + Symbol to Add

Sometimes, you want to make sure that a search engine finds pages that have all the words you enter, not just some of them. The + symbol lets you do this.

For example, imagine you want to find pages that have references to both President Clinton and Kenneth Starr on the same page. You could search this way…. Source: SearchEngineWatch