The topic of Phrase Search was briefly discussed in my article Basic Search - Automatic Exclusion, but here I plan to go in to a little more detail. When searching with Google, by entering keywords in the search field you are effectively searching for Word1 AND Word2 AND Word3, but not in that exact order. This can lead to inaccurate results from your search. Google also has a feature called "stemming" that is supposed to be user-friendly but can also be counter productive. Phrase Searching may be a good technique to get the accurate results you are looking for and it only requires adding quotations.
If you wanted to search for deadly snakes in Texas, and you know for a fact you want EXACTLY the words Deadly Snakes then you should do a phrase search with those words. A phrase search may be "Deadly Snakes" in Texas or even "Deadly snakes in Texas". By adding the quotation marks to your search, you are telling Google you want that phrase, not the words individually. Maybe "Deadly Snakes in Texas" is lyrics from a song you are searching for, by telling Google you want exactly that phrase, you are more likely to get accurate results.
The "Stemming" feature that Google has effectively searches for variations of a keyword that you entered. This is a very user-friendly tool so that you do not have to type each variation of a word untill you find your match. By variation, I do not mean synonym (discussed later), Google gives an example of Diet being a variation of Dietary. The same could probably be said for any other root word. So from a user friendly perspective, without this feature, any website using the word dietary would not be listed in a search of Diet.
Using our Deadly Snakes examples, maybe Stemming will search of Dead Snakes in Texas. Without tell Google the exact phrase you are looking for, tools like this may result in poor results.
Please feel free to test this technique in either Google Search Box located above or below this article.
