Search engine word delimiters: guy-macon, guy.macon, "guy+macon", guy|macon, etc.




A question was raised in another thread about how Google treats
various non-letters such as ampersands, periods, etc. in search
terms. I recently gathered some data on this:

NUMBER OF SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS FOR VARIOUS SEARCH TERMS:
06 SEPTEMBER 2005

64,800,000 hits:
guy|macon
"guy|macon"
guy OR macon
"guy OR macon"

66,700,000 hits:
guy

60,100,000 hits:
"guy"

6,940,000 hits:
macon

4,280,000 hits:
"macon"

240,000 hits:
guy macon
Guy Macon
GUY MACON
guy macon <--(with an ASCII 255 in the middle)
guy`macon
guy+macon
guy,macon
guy<macon
guy>macon
guy?macon
guy[macon
guy]macon
guy}macon
guy{macon
+guy +macon
guy AND macon
guy or macon
guy"macon
"guy"macon"
Guy ` + , < > ? [ ] { } Macon

15,100 hits:
guy-macon

14,300 hits:
"guy macon"
"Guy Macon"
"GUY MACON"
"guy macon" <--(with an ASCII 255 in the middle)
"guy`macon"
"guy+macon"
"guy,macon"
"guy<macon"
"guy>macon"
"guy?macon"
"guy[macon"
"guy]macon"
"guy{macon"
"guy}macon"
"+guy +macon"
"guy.macon"
"guy'macon"
"guy/macon"
"guy\macon"
"guy=macon"
guy.macon
guy'macon
guy/macon
guy\macon
guy=macon
"guy-macon"

3,470 hits:
"http://www.guymacon.com/";
<http://www.guymacon.com/>

1 hit:
http://www.guymacon.com/

364,000 hits:
guy*macon

742 hits:
"guy*macon"

875 hits:
GuyMacon
guymacon
"GuyMacon"
"guymacon"

35 hits:
"guy AND macon"
"guy and macon"

20 hits:
guy&macon
"guy&macon"

29 hits:
guy_macon
"guy_macon"

13 hits:
guyXmacon <--- Good search term for finding last year's test
"guyXmacon"

NOTES:

_ and & are treated like letters/numbers, not
as word separators.

Space ` + , < > ? [ ] { } ASCII-255 are treated
like spaces separating words

.. ' / \ = are treated like spaces separating
words if they are within quotes. If they are
not inside quotes, they are treated as if they
are spaces separating words and are inside quotes.

Upper case and lower case are mostly treated the
same, but while and and AND are treated the same,
or and OR are not.

and and AND and OR are treated as words if within
quotes. or and Or and oR are always treated as a word.

"guy-macon" = "guy macon", but guy-macon gives
a result unlike any other search.

* as used in guy*macon and "guy*macon" give results
unlike any other search.

"guymacon" is the same as guymacon, but "guy" is
not treated the same as guy and "macon" is not
treated the same as macon.

Google has changed these rules several times.

Note that the rules may be different for URLs.

Non-dictionary words such as guymacon or guyXmacon are
treated differently from dictionary words such as guy
and macon.

Geographical words such as macon are treated differently
from non-geographical words such as guy.

Spell-checking the above list tells you which characters
your spell-checker sees as being word delimiters.

It is difficult to write a sentence that talks about the
difference between and and AND and And and & and "and"
and "AND" and "And" and "&" and 'and' and 'AND' and 'And'
and '&', and `and' and `AND' and `And' and `&', and ''and''
and ''AND'' and ''And'' and ''&'', and I really mean it! :)


--
Guy Macon
<a href="http://www.guymacon.com/";>
http://www.guymacon.com/
</a>


.

Relevant Pages