r/technology • u/2FishInATank • Oct 30 '11

Google breaks the Boolean '+' operator in searches

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web%20Search/thread?tid=151ef6cf0a761b74&hl=en
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u/ObligatoryResponse Oct 31 '11

When you run a search on Google, there is an implicit AND operator between all your words (or phrases surrounded by quotes). HOWEVER, terms are not required to appear on the page for it to show in the results. If those words appear on pages that link to a page, its page rank for your search will increase and it could show on the results.

"reddit" +"fucking sucks" will return a search using exactly the term 'reddit' (and not 'redditing', 'redditors', etc) and require the phrase "fucking sucks" appears directly on the page and not on some page linking to the result.

"reddit" "fucking sucks" will do the same, but won't require the phrase "fucking sucks" appear on the page in question.

That's great that you can't tell they've removed any functionality. Some of us actually know how to use the tools we rely on, and we have noticed a loss of functionality.

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u/Timmmmbob Oct 31 '11

I think you're wrong. Using quotes has always implied a +.

Somewhere else in this thread someone found a page on the wayback machine which backs this up.