Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 November 16

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Computing desk
< November 15 << Oct | November | Dec >> November 17 >
Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.


November 16[edit]

Google search with vertical bar in string[edit]

In Google can I do a web search with a string that contains a vertical bar, |? I mean I want to find pages which have the exact string between quotation marks "A|B" for example. --Atethnekos (DiscussionContributions) 05:27, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Google ignores most symbols, take a look at [1] and [2]. Moreover, Google uses the pipe for "or", see [3]. So, short answer, you can't. Symbolhound allows you to search with special characters (I don't know how many sites they have indexed, though), here's what they return [4].Phoenixia1177 (talk) 06:23, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Yeah, I'm not finding anything helpful; it's too bad there isn't more available. --Atethnekos (DiscussionContributions) 23:16, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The problem isn't really with the search - it's what Google actually save when they index a web page. They don't store symbols like that in their database - so there is literally no possible way to search for it. SteveBaker (talk) 18:12, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]