NEAR worked differently. it would search for text where 2 unrelated words were physically close to each other, like in same paragraph. it's more simple than what google does, but surprisingly effective.
e.g. "brakes NEAR ford NEAR (problem OR issue)" would bring back results with "brake issues with fords..." as opposed to AND where all words simply appear on the page.
no other search engine at the time offered anything near this power. the amount of crap eliminated by a properly constructed query was breathtaking
