Google search exact phrase doesn't work [duplicate]

Question

I want to see in the search results only pages with the phrase "cross fade". Here's what I tried and some results I got:

"cross fade" (surrounded by quotes): received pages with: Crossfade (no space).

"cross fade" - crossfade (i.e. same as above, minus crossfade: cross-fade, 'cross, fade'.

I want to get only the exact phrase.

Why is my question marked as duplicate? Where is the similar question? — gil_mo, Jan 14 '14 at 7:00
Maybe someone Google'd your question title in quotes but didn't check that the any of 20,000,000 results actually contained the exact phrase :D — Mark K Cowan, Jan 9 '17 at 16:51

Rik · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-13 15:23:56Z

2

Google likes to guess what you are searching for and it decides you must be looking for corssfade instead of cross fade :(

(I'm almost getting Clippy flashbacks with that:)

You can overrule Google by doing the following:

I know, it's a pain. You can also add &tbs=li:1 to your search string:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22cross+fade%22&tbs=li:1

If you make a shortcut to https://www.google.com/search?tbs=li:1 you will start the search with the Verbatim option already set.

enter image description here

(also a source)

answered Jan 13 '14 at 15:23

Rik

2861 silver badge2 bronze badges

Thanks for the try, but even with your suggestions you still get "crossfade", "cross-fade" etc.
– gil_mo
Jan 13 '14 at 15:46
Did you get this screen? With the Did you mean: "crossfade" at the top? Then this is as close you can get to the "Exact Search" with Google. Google will always take individual words and incorporate them in the search (even if you choose "Exact Search"). You could still combine it with -crossfade (like this but you'll always get mixed results.
– Rik
Jan 13 '14 at 15:53
That's exactly what I'm getting, and as you can see the majority of the instances in bold are not what I was looking for (only the two ones you marked are). Is there maybe a non-google search that would fulfill my humble request? Or did I hit upon some super advanced technological barrier? (bitter grin).
– gil_mo
Jan 13 '14 at 16:05
My initial quest was to do a 'google test' and compare 'cross fade' to 'crossfade' in terms of result count.
– gil_mo
Jan 13 '14 at 16:06
I would almost say... [Bing](www.bing.com) (ieks). But even Bing stumbles on Cross fade :( Yeah... you hit on some advanced (defective) mind-reading by the search engines. You could look at the suggestions in the possible duplicate from the comments. With Google the + doesn't work but with Bing you get somewhat better results. But i don't think you can use them to compare to "Crossfade" like you intended.
– Rik
Jan 13 '14 at 16:15

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