Google Intros Verbatim Search

Posted 11/17/2011 at 5:37am | by Pulkit Chandna

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Google recently announced the demise of the “+” search operator owing to low, and largely incorrect, use. Even though the search giant encouraged users to use double quotes instead, the move displeased a number of users. Now, Google has begun rolling out a new alternative feature called Verbatim search.

Verbatim search lets you do just that. Yes, it is a way of telling “Google to search using your exact terms.” This feature can be enabled from under “More search tools” on the left-hand side of the Google search results page.

When the verbatim search feature is enabled, Google will perform searches without making any of the following normal improvements:

•     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]