Sometimes the words I type into Google’s search box are the words I want to appear in the results. For years now I’ve been using the ‘+’ operator to ensure that every result includes a particular term. But recently, without warning, it stopped working. Fortunately Google have introduced a fix with the verbatim tool. According to Google’s search blog:
In most cases, Google’s algorithms make things better for our users – but in some rare cases, we don’t find what you were looking for. In the past, we provided users with the “+” operator to help you search for specific terms. However, we found that users typed the “+” operator in less than half a percent of all searches, and two thirds of the time, it was used incorrectly. A couple of weeks ago we removed the “+” operator, encouraging the use of the double quotes, which are more likely to be used correctly.
Since then, we’ve received a lot of requests for a more deliberate way to tell Google to search using your exact terms. We’ve been listening, and starting today you’ll be able to do just that through verbatim search. With the verbatim tool on, we’ll use the literal words you 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 1)
- finding results that match similar terms to those in your query (finding results related to “floral delivery” when you search 2)
- searching for words with the same stem like “running” when you’ve typed 3
- making some of your terms optional, like “circa” in 4
You can access the verbatim search tool under “More search tools” on the left-hand side.
According to Andy Baio at Wired, Google wouldn’t disclose why they phased out the ‘+’ operator "though it seems obvious that they’re paving the way for Google+ profile searches."
