When a word or phrase is surrounded by double quotes (") in a query, Google will search for what's quoted exactly instead of applying its usual interpretation algorithms, also called exact phrase search. For reference, I'll explain in this article all ways to use it.
About code: in the computer, double quotes (") and the single quote (') are different characters. To us humans, it may look like we can just type a single quote twice to make a double quote (e.g.: '') but computer programs don't work this way. Google's program only recognizes double quote characters, so if you type single quotes, Google won't work the way we want it to.
Searching for a Word Exactly
By default, Google will include in the search results words that are synonym with the words typed in the query. For example, if you search for:
amazing filmsGoogle will also include results that contain the phrase "incredible movies" instead of what we searched for, because "incredible" is synonymous with "amazing," and "movies" is synonymous with "films."
It may even include results that have the phrase "an amazing film" in the singular form, even though we typed "films" in the plural form of the word.
We can force Google to search only for a word exactly as we typed it by surrounding it in double quotes. For example, if type:
"amazing" filmsThen Google will search for "films," "movies," "film," etc., but the word "amazing" will always be "amazing," just as we typed it. Similarly, if we search for:
amazing "films"Then Google will include results for "amazing," "incredible," "best," etc., but the word "films" will always be "films," not "movies," and always in the plural, just as we typed it.
We can surround multiple words in quotes if we want to.
"amazing" "films"The query above will include results that contain "amazing films," but will also include results that have the words "amazing" and "films" written that way exactly anywhere on the page. For example: "10 films that are amazing."
Surrounding every word with quotes should have the same effect as using the verbatim mode, however for some reason the results can be different. I'm not really sure why.
Common problems: sometimes a query won't work because you typed an extra double quote at the start of the query. For example, if you type " "amazing" "films", Google will think you typed " " (double quotes surrounding a single space) twice.
Exact Phrase Search
To search for a phrase exactly on Google, with the words appearing exact in the order we typed, one after the other just the way we typed it, all we have to do is surround the entire phrase with double quotes.
"amazing films"The query above will only include results for "amazing films," and won't include results for "films that are amazing."
Searching for Phrases that Start and End with Specific Words
It's possible to specify how a phrase should start and end in Google, but let Google fill the middle of the phrase with any words it can find. To do this, we use an use an asterisk (*) inside a quoted phrase. This kind of search is also called pattern matching (and the asterisk is called a wildcard). For example:
"amazing * films"If we search this on Google, Google will give us results that have phrases like:
- Amazing international films.
- Amazing British films.
- Amazing supernatural horror films.
And so on.
Note that the asterisk can match more than one word.
In some programs an asterisk wildcard may match nothing, however this isn't the case with Google. Google won't match "amazing films" (with nothing between the two words) if your query is "amazing * films". The asterisk always matches something on Google.
It's also possible to use multiple asterisks in a single quoted phrase. For example:
"top * british * films"The query above will match phrases such as "top 50 British comedy films." Once again, the asterisk has to match something, so if a page only has written "top British comedy films," it won't be matched.
Excluding Exact Phrases from Results
We can combine the double quote operator with the minus operator to exclude all webpages that match an exact phrase from the search results. When we do this, the minus symbol (-) must come immediately before the opening double quote ("). For example:
amazing films -"best films"The query above will stop Google from including webpages that contain the phrase "best films" in the results, because Google may think "best" is a synonym for "amazing."
Note that this won't stop Google from including results that have the phrase "best movies," so we need to exclude that as well.
amazing films -"best films" -"best movies"This will work, but it won't stop Google from including results that say "best 10 films" or "best flicks" and things like that, so in general this is only useful if there's really a specific phrase that you don't want to see.
Common problems: if you type a space between the minus (-) and the double quote (") Google won't recognize it as an excluded phrase, e.g. - "best movies", instead, it will ignore the - and search for "best movies" as an exact phrase. Make sure there are is no space after the minus!
Excluding Exact Words from Results
We can also exclude exact words from the search results with the same method.
amazing films -"best"The query above will exclude all webpages that have the word "best," which will probably exclude even webpages that don't say something like "best films" but just have the word somewhere like "it has the best acting."
Excluding Patterns from Results
We can also exclude a phrase with asterisks in it with the same method.
amazing films -"top * films"This will remove all of those listicles that say "top 10 films" and "top 20 films" and "top 100 films" from the search results, however, again, it will do nothing with top movies, best films, etc.
We could include every possible combination of words as an excluded phrase with a wildcard inside of it, but this is generally a bad idea, as Google will start thinking you're a bot wasting the search engine's resources with queries that are too complicated for a normal person to have written.