# How to do this kind of search (Google or elsewhere)?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-do-this-kind-of-search-google-or-elsewhere/361134>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 18, 2006, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-do-this-kind-of-search-google-or-elsewhere/361134 "2006-06-18T01:55:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2006, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-do-this-kind-of-search-google-or-elsewhere/361134/1 "2006-06-18T01:55:45Z")

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I rely mostly on Google for my searches, but haven’t found a way to do the following: when I do a search for an exact phrase, how do I search for ONLY that exact phrase without variants based on punctuation? For example, if I’m searching for “Peggy Sue”, I don’t want matches like “the cheeseburger is for **Peggy, Sue** gets the hotdog”. In other words, a connected phrase, no conjunctions based on commas, semicolons, hyphens or periods. I tried using the exclude from search features, but apparently Google doesn’t recognize phrase differences based on punctuation.

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**Author:** ![jormundgondir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dfb087/32.png) [@jormundgondir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jormundgondir)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2006, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-do-this-kind-of-search-google-or-elsewhere/361134/2 "2006-06-18T01:59:53Z")

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use quotes around any phrase you want returned exactly literally, for example:

“cow’s”

gets 4,400,000 hits;

“cows”

gets around 38,500,000 hits;

cows (with no quotes at all)

gets 39,000,000

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**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2006, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-do-this-kind-of-search-google-or-elsewhere/361134/3 "2006-06-18T02:40:07Z")

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If it makes a difference, both “Peggy Sue” and “Peggy\*\*,\*\* Sue” retrieved identical results, about 1,390,000 hits, though the former took .59 seconds, while the latter took .15 (caching?). It makes a bit of sense for Google to treat and apostrophes and commas differently.

Rhythm