Proximity Search Available on Google

Google’s undocumented AROUND operator allows for proximity searches such as:

sue AROUND(3) brown

which might be helpful for people finding searches, to pick up hits where a person may or may not use a middle name.  AROUND(3) means the terms must appear within 3 words of each other.  But note that if Google can not find anything within those parameters, it will use a regular ranking.

The AROUND operator appears to work in Google Scholar as well, when searching for articles or cases.  However, the searches I tried had the same or nearly the same results whether the operator was used or not.

Another useful operator to use while searching cases on Google Scholar is the ~ which searches for synonyms and related words for example ~constitutionality searches for constitutional, unconstitutional, etc.

One might also try the * operator, which is a placeholder for a word.  For example, sexual * abuse picks up “sexual misconduct abuse”, “sexual child abuse”, etc.

Altavista no longer supports a proximity search – that went away when Yahoo took them over.  Exalead uses the proximity operation NEAR, and Bing also has a near operator, eg. near:10.     Many other search engines do not have proximity operators.

Thanks to Tom Boone for the tip on the AROUND operator.