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Google search syntax

Proximity searching in Google Alerts

by Adam Green on May 3, 2009

in Google Alerts, Google search syntax

proximity

Great question, Paul. True proximity searching would imply some type of distance value that meant, “Show me these words separated by no more than N words.” Google Alerts doesn’t have this syntax, but you can get close to it with the asterisk wild card. Normally I use the asterisk to find phrases that may have several variations, such as a trademark or pop culture catchphrase. For example, the phrase “Make love, not war” has endless variations, which you can find with make * not war. My favorite is Make cupcakes, not war.

The Google docs say that the asterisk only matches a single word, but that isn’t true. I have found it to match from 1 to 3 words. So you can use this as a proximity search where N is somewhere between 1 and 3.

Here is a way I might use it for my work with Google Alerts. I want to find all mentions of this, but people often describe them as Google News Alerts, Google Web Alerts, or Google Blog Alerts. They also use either alerts or alert. This search will match all of these patterns:
“google * alerts” OR “google * alert”

Do you have a Google Alerts question you need answered? Tweet me @mrgooglealerts, or leave a comment here.

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Google Alerts Bug: Upper or lower case can break your alerts

by Adam Green on March 10, 2009

in Bugs, Google Alerts, Google search syntax

I’ve always been annoyed by software that makes a distinction between upper and lower case. Other than passwords, there is no reason why a human should care. The only programmers who care are either too anal or too much like a computer to recognize that this is just weird. I’m not sure which group Google’s coders fall into, but they do have some weird ideas about case that can break your Google Alerts.

One example is using the word or to separate multiple terms. Google requires you to capitalize it as OR. If you create an alert with or instead, Google will ignore it. The funny thing is that when or is ignored, Google then assumes that you want to and all the words. So a search for pizza OR beer will work and give you alerts for either word, but pizza or beer will only give you alerts where both words are found.

The exact opposite rule applies to special search operators, such as intitle: or site:. These must be in lower case, or else Google will actually search for these words. For example, a search for intitle:pizza will only deliver alerts where pizza is found in the title, but INTITLE:pizza will look for alerts with both the words intitle and pizza anywhere in the page.

The worst part about this for Google Alerts is that when you create an alert there is no warning if you enter something Google doesn’t understand. You just don’t get any alerts, or you get the wrong ones, which is why you should try every alert query as a Google search first.

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