The AND-operator is used to connect two or more search terms/concepts
Use AND to narrow a search and retrieve records containing all of the words it separates, e.g. “food retail” AND Netherlands will only find records containing both these words.
OR
The OR-operator is used for synonyms, related terms, plural/single and different ways of spelling
Use OR to broaden a search and retrieve records containing any of the words it separates, e.g.(”food retail” OR supermarkets) will find records containing “food retail” only, supermarkets only, or both words.
Note: Use of parentheses (round brackets) is required when using the OR-operator.
NOT
The NOT-operator is used to exclude search terms/concepts
Use NOT to narrow a search and retrieve records that do not contain the term following it, e.g. supermarkets NOT hypermarkets will find records that contain supermarkets, but will not contain the word hypermarkets.
In Google you have to use a dash (-) instead of NOT.
Note: Be careful when using the NOT-operator! You may unintentionally exclude relevant documents from your results!