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Google Search Engine

Ignore Words Can Clarify Searches

SUMMARY: Google searches going astray? Consider using ignore, or stop, words.


 

Tired of searching for information about apples and getting results about Apple Computer? Looking for information about bass fishing but getting music-related results?

When you search for websites, you may be using words that have double meanings. Google can't read your mind, and will show webpages that it thinks best match your query, whether it matches your intended query's meaning or not.

To help clarify your searches, you may want to employ ignore (or stop) words, so that, for example, if you are searching for apples, you don't want results containing the word "computer". To do so, enter your search query, and preface your ignore words with hyphens to signify that Google should ignore results containing such words.

In the above example, your query could be:

apple -computer

Or you can combine multiple ignore words together:

apple -computer -Macintosh



 

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