Google Launches Verbatim: Search for the Specific Speller

Google often tries to alter your search queries, swapping in synonyms and spellings and removing specific words because it thinks it knows what you're looking for. While Google's assistance is often helpful, sometimes, the user knows best. For those users, Google announced a simple way to search exactly what you mean Tuesday, called Google Verbatim.

Under Google's search tools in the left sidebar, users will now see a Verbatim option at the very bottom of the list. As the name implies, when you run a query using Verbatim, you'll get results based on exactly what you put in the search box. No suggestions, and no autofill; results are based on only the words you typed.

Until recently, one could form verbatim queries in Google by using the + sign, but the search company has since altered the function of that operator to make it connect to brand pages found within its Google+ social network. Google calls the new function Direct Connect.

Some users are miffed over the choice to axe the old + operator, but Google disagrees with those upset fans, claiming the + operator was used in less than half a percent of all searches, and even then, people used the operator incorrectly about two-thirds of the time. Google believes the Verbatim search feature is much easier to use and will be used by more people.

Google has been working hard to improve its search features to provide more relevant and time-sensitive results, and also to defend against up-and-coming search competitors. On Nov. 3, the company announced it changed its search algorithm to provide more real-time search results. Five days later, blogger Cyrus Shepard discovered Google experimenting with a new search product called Sources, which fills Google search results with background information and relevant content based on the query.

Verbatim provides yet another way for users to find exactly what they're looking for, but if users don't want to use the new feature, they can still accomplish verbatim searches the old fashioned way by putting quotation marks around the search terms.