I was wondering if there was a way to google something and say these words are compulsory and these words are optional.

Is that what search within results is for? I'm thinking search within results means the results that you have already retrieved search them for the additional words and re arrange them in a new order that best matches the new search.

The Google site says it all.

In particular the advanced search page.

Happy Searching.

I have already read that still don't know how to do it. The particular search that I was doing was "Banshee" and then search within results "doesn't minimize in system tray" The problem is the first results doesn't contain the word Banshee in it. So it is not actually searching within results it is just appending the additional words to the search.

Try this, type in the google search bar...

A standard search string submitted to google is in "search for all words" mode. So the term "foo bar support group" will be interpreted as "foo AND bar AND support AND group". It will look for foo bar support groups, but might also come up with other foo bar-related or support group-related results.

If you require that a certain word is included in the results, you have to put a plus sign in front of it. So if you must have the word "bar" in every results you could search for "foo +bar support group". If you wanted to filter out anything to do with Windows, the minus sign does the opposite, so you might type "+linux forums discussion boards -windows -microsoft" which would find forums only pertaining to Linux.

I hope this answers your question.

Thank you xaler that is the answer I am looking for.

This is my thread and I am signed in. Why isn't there a thank button(thumbs up)

That's right, as long as Google classify the word as a "common" word. From Google Advanced Search Help: "Google ignores common words and characters such as where, the, how, and other digits and letters which slow down your search without improving the results. We'll indicate if a word has been excluded by displaying details on the results page below the search box.

If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a "+" sign in front of it. (Be sure to include a space before the "+" sign.) ".

If words that are not classified as common by Google are included in the search, Google will only return results including all words because, as explained by JmaJeremy, searching for "foo bar support group" is interpreted as "foo AND bar AND support AND group"

IIRC "+word" was used to confine the search to exactly that word, for example "+say" would not match "saying" and "says" but that's not what Google Advanced Search Help says now.

I have changed my mined. banshee minimize AND system AND tray is more what I want. As OR will only display pages that have just one of the words

I've just tried it and it works exactly as you hoped -- after searching for Banshee and then clicking "Search within results" I entered "doesn't minimize in system tray" (with the quotes) and the only result returned was your LQ post.

banshee doesn't AND minimize AND in AND system AND tray
this thread comes up as number 3
I guess the ones above contain all the words as well and are more popular or something that this thread

banshee doesn't minimize in system tray
this comes up as number 5

Using quotes is only good if you know the exactly what you are looking for