Exact Phrase Search Issues

Users complain about search engines ignoring double quotes for exact phrase matching, delivering fuzzy, irrelevant, or 'did you mean' results instead of precise matches. Discussions highlight deteriorated functionality in tools like Google and calls for better support for operators, verbatim modes, and keyword intersections.

📉 Falling 0.2x Other
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20
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5
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#7595
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Keywords

API OK ResearchGate opensourcealternative.to AltaVista LibreOffice paste.pics P204PPX TIOBE FIFA search results exact verbatim query searches matches searched searching quotes

Sample Comments

throwawaylala1 Mar 30, 2022 View on HN

Love the idea, but I can't search for exact matches using quotes :(

edraferi May 8, 2019 View on HN

Wish I could search for an exact phrase. I'm getting non-relevant results.

scoutt Jul 17, 2020 View on HN

It can't search for exact strings. Double quotes don't work.

cobbaut Aug 5, 2022 View on HN

Search "xaverius franciscus"Only one of the first six results contains the exact phrase, the others all have other characters between these two words.Search +"napoloen" And it insists on including napoleon.Please include an 'expert' mode or something for people who know what they are looking for.

rhizome Feb 5, 2022 View on HN

For some searches the results don't include my search terms. They just go silently straight to the "did you mean?" results.

tpxl Sep 16, 2021 View on HN

The search straight up doesn't work. You have to search for an exact word or it wont find it, ie 'hell' wont find the word 'hello'.

caxon26 Apr 23, 2025 View on HN

Googles a little better about matching exact terms if you go to search tools -> all results and change it to Verbatim

jollyllama Jan 4, 2023 View on HN

I just want keyword based search with "advanced" operators. Let me search for exact terms, etc. Let me exclude words. And don't question my directives, show me want I actually searched for on the first try, etc.

Apocryphon Jan 11, 2023 View on HN

Google exact phrase matching definitely feels like it has deteriorated.

detaro Aug 16, 2022 View on HN

you can use the search for that relatively well, turn off "typo tolerance" and "search submission text" to have less false-positives included