Google Search

January 3, 2005 1:02 PM

Can you search Google with terms that include special characters (10%, #1, etc.)? Even in quotations, Google seems to drop the characters it doesn't like.

I've tried putting queries in and out of quotes, escaping (&, &x0034) the special characters, searching for help on using Google, Search Engine Watch and nothing has worked. Hope me AskMe!

posted by turbodog to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Could you give some examples of what you're trying to find (examples where you want to use special characters)?
posted by WestCoaster at 1:26 PM on January 3, 2005

Basicly, no. I think this was asked a while back too, and while there are ofcourse sometimes workarounds for specific cases by deducing what words would surround the symbols, you cannot search for symbols with google.
posted by fvw at 1:37 PM on January 3, 2005

Google ignores some punctuation and special characters, including , . ; ? [ ] ( ) @ / #.

However that link does also say that it "knows" certain terms like C++ which would ordinarily be using two of Google's operator characters as part of its name. Google also seems to "know" when the @ sign is used as part of an email address because I get different results searching for [e-mail] than I do for jessamyn%gmail.com. Most, though by no means all, search engines basically strip all punctuation from your query. This came up on Slashdot a while ago and they have some more examples of what works and what doesn't in that thread.
posted by jessamyn at 1:39 PM on January 3, 2005

Sorry, no solution. I know I've had the same problem when searching for software called "Astro*Talk". I think they named it pre-google.
posted by ModestyBCatt at 2:26 AM on January 4, 2005

I've had the same problem when searching for software called "Astro*Talk".

If you google for "Astro Talk" software, you'll get a lot of hits on Astro*Talk. Apparently Google treats the asterisk as if it were a space.
posted by WestCoaster at 9:33 AM on January 4, 2005

I asked a similar question here. Didn't have much luck.
posted by callmejay at 10:55 AM on January 5, 2005