Throwing the Brackets

Inside Google, we email queries around a lot. An example might be

Hey Brian, check out “mexican food in Dublin”

Now, does the person who sent that to me want me to search in quotes, or without? When we email queries around, we use brackets ([]) to represent the search box:

[mexican food in dublin]

If I want the quotes,

["mexican food in Dublin"]

Saves an email back, “did you want me to put that in quotes or not?” :)

While we’re on the topic, this will probably help me:

["* mexican food in dublin" +ireland]

Looks like I’ll be taking the DART out to Howth…

This entry was posted in Fun, Google. Bookmark the permalink.

7 Responses to Throwing the Brackets

  1. Funny, for some odd reason (only known to my own brain) I had mixed your name up with someone on the GA project.

    Nice to see an Irish Googler writing. And someone from search quality to boot. You never know, you might just be the next Matt Cutts :)

    Best rgds
    Richard

  2. Brian says:

    I’m American, actually ;) I’m in Dublin working for a while.

  3. Dave Davis says:

    Regardless, anyone who knows that the DART to Howth is not a search related comment is OK in my book!

  4. Tripp Lilley says:

    Odd synchronicity. I just read this (28 June,) but started doing this very thing about two days ago, unprompted by anyone, and having had no exposure to it.

    I put spaces within my brackets, though, to make cut and paste a little easier on systems with sloppy mouse tracking. E.g., [ "tripp lilley" ]

  5. TallTroll says:

    Hmmm, hewwo Bwian :) I guess I’ll start harassing the hell out of you as well as Matt now I’ve found you. Gonna be in London again any time soon?

  6. Adam Senour says:

    So you’re an American looking for Mexican food in Ireland.

    Why not just get yourself a nice pot of Irish stew instead? That stuff rocks!

  7. I second that motion, very cool to see an Irish (based) Google writer. Bookmarked and will be coming back a lot, i hope!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>