Google search often tries to guess what the user meant by correcting their query and suggesting the most popular answers. However, sometimes this is not what is needed, and to direct the Google search in the right direction, you can use a special operator: quotation marks. If you put the desired word or phrase in quotation marks, Google will show only those pages that contain them. This is an important and popular feature, so Google decided to improve it.

From now on, the fragments that will be displayed for search results (that is, the text that the user sees describing the web content) will be formed around the place where the word or phrase in quotes occurs in the web document. This means that you can more easily determine where to find them by clicking on the link and visiting the content. In the desktop search, the cited material will also be highlighted in bold.

For example, if you typed in a search query like “google search,” the snippet will show you exactly where that phrase appears:

In the past, Google didn’t always do this, because sometimes cited material appears in parts of the document that don’t lend themselves to useful snippets. For example, a word or phrase may appear in a menu item on a page rather than in the text.

Because search queries can match content that isn’t visible on the page, it’s sometimes hard to see it, making it look like the content isn’t on the page when it actually is.

For example, content in the description meta tag is checked for matches, even if that content is not visible on the web page itself. The ALT text that describes the image is taken into account, as well as the text in the page URL. Material received through embedded frames (iframes) is also mapped. Google may also see content that doesn’t initially load on a page when a user lands on it. Such content is rendered using JavaScript and only appears when the user clicks on it.

Using quotes can definitely be a great tool for advanced users. However, Google recommends first performing any search in natural language without resorting to operators such as quotation marks.