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How can I search for a keyword with special characters in Google Search?
How to search the internet for terms with special characters

How do you use Google (or perhaps other search engines) when special (punctuation) characters are involved?

I'm searching for things in programming languages where punctuation marks are part of the terms, but often left off when run through most search engines.

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migrated from superuser.com Nov 18 '12 at 15:46

marked as duplicate by Al Everett, Eight Days of Malaise, Alex, Sathya♦ Nov 25 '12 at 15:10

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You may not be able to search for them. Search engines discard most punctuation, usually fold upper and lower case together and index only whatever's left. Which characters are discarded and which are kept varies from one engine to another, based in part on their own analysis of what users are trying to find. For example, when I worked on the Microsoft engine (what's now called Bing), we initially discarded plus signs until we realized that caused problems on searches for C++.

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Still the same then? I feel it does make sense, but it's sometimes annoying. Thank you for your answer. – MDeSchaepmeester Nov 18 '12 at 16:10
You can also use SymbolHound. It is a search engine that lets you search on punctuation, designed especially for programming language syntax. – user29214 Nov 18 '12 at 16:35

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