What’s old is new again. Boolean search may have a uniquely 1990s aesthetic, but it only ever lost out as being too complicated for the mainstream. It really wasn’t that bad to begin with.
And is it better now? Google search, once a wonder of the modern world, has been reduced to a battlefield of trash genuinely not offering any advanced search for web archives.
When did it go wrong? Well, honestly, it went wrong when they stopped respecting Boolean operators.
Everybody knows this, and yet nobody wants to talk about it. Google traded search precision for interaction algos, and dammit, the world had to pay the price.
But you, you can take it back. The absolute beast that is the Boolean search can be yours today.
No soft matching on some arcane ranking formula, no more treating your phrases and NOT operators as mere suggestions. Boolean search is the cold, hard algebra of truth. What you see is what you get.
The Lost Art of Query Construction
When was the last time you crafted a proper search query? Like, a legit query.
Quotation marks, parentheses, AND/OR/NOT operators deployed with surgical precision. Most can’t remember. They’ve been spoon-fed the illusion that natural language search is somehow better. The truth of the matter is that it’s only the lowest common denominator.
Boolean search is like chess. Yes, there’s a learning curve. No, your grandma probably won’t master it overnight. But once you’ve got it, you’ve got a tool that cuts through noise like none other.
Pros in need of actual answers—they never abandoned the Boolean. While the masses were herded toward simplified interfaces, the power users held the flame.
Remember when putting something in quotes meant “find this phrase or don’t bother”? That world still exists, but you’ve got to know where to look.
Simple Search: The Gateway Drug
Even the most basic Boolean operations cut through the fog.
These are the classics—operators that will elevate your search game from fumbling in the dark to surgical strikes. Just a handful of these make you dangerous.
* privacy
* “privacy policy”
* boundar*
* privacy AND policy
* privacy OR policy
* policy NOT privacy
Advanced Search: Where the Magic Happens
Ready for more? Field-specific Boolean is the endgame. Combine these with simple operators and you’ve unlocked god mode. These commands are about precision-targeting exactly what you need in the haystack that is your web crawl data.
* id: 12345
* url: example.com/*
* type: html
* status: 200
* status: >=400 AND url: /blog/
* content: sale AND url: /products1/
* headers: text/xml
* (login OR signin) AND form
* type: html AND status: 500
Boolean Search for MCP with mcp-server-webcrawl
mcp-server-webcrawl is a MCP server for Claude Desktop that allows the LLM to search your web crawl data with Boolean precision. Not only that, field search is included, and is Boolean aware.
Hand the keys to the LLM with the power to filter your data, sit back, and let it run. Whether you are researching a technical issue, managing content, or using a website as a knowledgebase, AI is very good at Boolean search. Probably better than you. It’s a well documented grammar.
With mcp-server-webcrawl, the MCP client can combine Boolean operators with fields to do some intense filtering. What do you need to know about your website? That’s up to you. Boolean search aims to answer those questions, and answer them honestly.
