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Comment by Matt_Cutts | Hacker News Reader

It's definitely the case that <0.5% of searches use the plus operator, and most of those searches aren't using plus correctly. If you used the plus operator correctly, you're well within the 1% of most savvy searchers.

You might be surprised and discouraged to discover that most people don't know about things like the minus operator to exclude terms from search results.

If you really want to be depressed, read this: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/crazy-...

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Could you explain how exactly the + operator is used incorrectly?

I know that personally i often end up with bizarre looking searches, purely because i know what i'm searching for. e.g. it might include purposeful spelling mistakes, requiring the plus to avoid autocorrection...but this doesn't mean i'm using the + incorrectly.

I just can't imagine somebody, potentially, understanding boolean logic, describing a search with it, and using it incorrectly. I can't even imagine the most naive usage being incorrect, unless you're sure that you know what they wanted to do somehow.

I'm at a conference and can't easily get on our internal VPN from here, but I'll try to remember to circle back around when I can get on our VPN.

But in general, you see a lot of stuff that looks like semi-random punctuation just sprinkled at the beginning of the query or throughout the query, things that look like people are using plus instead of space as if they're copying from an address bar, etc.

Ah ok that makes sense, thanks. I'm just mainly surprised at how little usage there was of the operator to begin with. I use it (used to use it) probably 20+ times a day, and would've assumed that it's common enough, at least in certain circles (academia etc).

Okay, I found the sample data. Lots of stuff like phone numbers: +XXX YYY ZZZZ. Lots of multiple plus searches, like +++++aaaa. Lots of people using + instead of space: aaa+bbb+ccc. Lots of searches with every word having a plus in front of each word: +aaa +bbb +ccc +ddd +eee. Some people surrounding words with plus: aaa +bbb+ ccc. Those were the first things that popped up in a quick glance.

Thanks a million man, so basically it seems like those people weren't actually meaning to use the operator at all. Sure you already parse them out anyway, though. Ah...i wont go on too much, i'm still surprised that so few people used it on purpose! Thanks again

To be sure, Google search used to allow the period to force a connection between terms. "foo bar baz" == foo.bar.baz

No wonder my website, foo.bar.biz has been getting so much traffic :o

I'd rather . notation than "" any day. Doesn't seem to work now...

Could it be that + is used by people who just don't know that Google treats it specially? Syntax of Google search is rather not common knowledge among general population. This might be a case especially when searching for books, songs, movies, magazines, etc. with '+' in title.

Example queries (random ideas):

  - 18+ movies
  - children + fire proverb
  - 2+3D magazine
  - C++
  - ++ operator

Personally I often just copy-paste general things I'm looking for (like song titles) from websites or IM conversations, with whatever characters they happen to be containing.

EDIT:

There are plenty of queries with + signs in autocompletion hints in Google search - like 18+ clubs, 2+2 forums, 0+ blood type, NaOH+H2SO4, etc.

At a complete guess, i'd guess that their parser would check for usage of a plus that doesn't fit the boolean mould and doesn't count it as such. And i guess too, because like you say...autocomplete knows about it, it has exceptions for acceptable +'s that also aren't included in the malformed searches that the Google guy is talking about.

So i still can't really imagine how there are so many misused ones...

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