Google announced that it’s rolling out a new tool for advanced searches called “Verbatim,” which replaces search syntax that’s been phased out. “Verbatim” lets you force Google to treat your search terms precisely as you typed them, in the same way that some of the expensive legal research systems allow you to specify precise terms or phrases.
An interesting aside: in the announcement, Google provides a quick summary of how its regular search method works. It’s common knowledge that Google doesn’t just find all the websites that have the same words you’ve typed into the search bar–instead, it (usually) finds the best, most useful websites. To do this, Google “improves” your searches by doing some or all of the following:
- making automatic spelling corrections
- personalizing your search by using information such as sites you’ve visited before
- including synonyms of your search terms (matching “car” when you search [automotive])
- finding results that match similar terms to those in your query (finding results related to “floral delivery” when you search [flower shops])
- searching for words with the same stem like “running” when you’ve typed [run]
- making some of your terms optional, like “circa” in [the scarecrow circa 1963]
So next time you’re looking for a specific phrase, try using “Verbatim” your results (click “More search tools” under All Results) if it seems like Google’s “normal improvements” aren’t working well for that search.
Related link: Google Help’s Verbatim tool – Web Search Help.