How Do I... Google Your Exact Words
Posted: February 8, 2012
If you know what you want to search for in Google, you might not appreciate Google's "suggestions" for you. Here's how to tell Google what you want verbatim.
- Go to http://www.google.com.
- Enter the search phrase or word and press Enter. Example: Vince Verbeke
- On the left hand side, click More search tools. You will then see the Verbatim choice. Click this to limit the search to just the text that you have entered.
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With the verbatim tool on, Google will use the literal words you've entered without making normal improvements such as:
- 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]
