Just Now, Google Made a Tiny Change to One of Its Most Practical Features. It Doesn’t Just Apply to Power Users

Google search is amazing for many reasons than just its ability to locate the information you’re looking for among the billions of online pages. You could argue that it is a feat in and of itself that it can determine what we’re seeking for, even when we’re not very good at asking.

When you enter a word or phrase into Google Search, one of the first things that happens is that it attempts to understand what you mean. That is typically more helpful than simply attempting to discover the precise phrase.

For instance, there probably aren’t many websites with the precise phrase “ice cream chocolate Philadelphia” if you type it into a search engine. In addition, Google will attempt to offer you results for the greatest chocolate ice cream in Philadelphia as that is what you are actually searching for.

However, there are occasions when typing the exact words or phrase into the search box is what you truly want to accomplish. Another possibility is that when you type something into Google, it interprets it completely differently. Even if it’s a very educated guess, it’s still basically guessing what you mean.

Power users are aware that you can enclose your search term in quotation marks to only display exact matches in that situation. One of Google’s most beneficial—but underutilized—features is this one.

For instance, you may use quotations to search for a certain sentence from your favorite movie and Google will return websites that include that precise line. Or perhaps you’re seeking for websites that use a certain word. Basically, you want Google to offer you exact results instead of trying to find out what you truly want.

The issue is that Google provides you a general description of a page below the links when it displays search results, even when you use quotation marks.

The purpose is to provide you with additional context about a web page than what is provided by the title alone. However, if you’re seeking for a certain term, the page’s summary is frequently less significant than the location of the words themselves.

Fortunately, Google is introducing an update that provides context for the locations of quoted search phrases on websites. In a recent blog post, the business provided the following justification for the change:

The text you see describing web content in search results will be generated around the location of a quoted word or phrase that appears in a web document. As a result, after you click the link and access the content, it will be simpler to locate them. We’ll also bold the quoted text on desktop.

According to user feedback, people conducting quoted searches prefer to view the exact location of the quoted text on a page over a general description of the page. This is something that our improvement is meant to aid with.

There are certain restrictions. As Google notes, there are times when the words or phrase you are looking for doesn’t show up in the website’s content. It occasionally occurs in the image’s alt text or metadata, which aids visually challenged people in identifying the image using screen readers. Even if that text doesn’t actually appear on the internet page you are seeing, Google can still see it.

Google advises searching the page with Command—F in that situation. To search all of the text that Google can see, you can also use tools like “developer mode.”

The good news is that Google actually does a fantastic job of determining what you’re looking for and finding it for the majority of searches. Using quotation marks is recommended because most individuals don’t need to do it frequently.

In fact, adding more words will enhance the likelihood that Google will provide the information you’re looking for. Seriously. Google can be used to ask detailed inquiries, and it will typically locate the solution.

Generally speaking, the more words you enter in the search bar, the better. Google wants to deliver results from authoritative websites that it believes are pertinent to your search. Use extra words if you’re having trouble locating what you’re looking for. Try adding quotes if that doesn’t work. After all, Google just improved one of its most essential services.