issues with trying to "not" search terms

jello234

 

walch +oswego -"deed index"

gave me all the “deed index” results first and did not exclude “deed index”. Didn’t matter if I tried parens:

(walch +oswego) -"deed index"

Same results

 

If I keep to just two search terms, it’s better:

walch -"deed index"

                 just 2509 results. no “deed index”

 

however, if I add +Oswego, then I’m back up to 130,000+ results:

 walch +oswego -"deed index"

 

walch -"deed index" limiter NY

                 2509 results

 

walch limiter NY

                 2510 results

 

RobertWessel

@jello234

Using -"deed index" will only eliminate those documents that contain the exact phrase "deed index" in the scanned text of the document. Although "deed index" appears in the title of the database in which individual results were found, none of the documents contained this exact phrase in the text of the document. If you repeat the search using -"index of deeds" you get a totally different result because this exact phrase appears in the scanned image.