[lstamour]

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en but it's not complete. My favourite is actually the "range" operator. I don't need it often, but when combined with the exact match quotation marks, it's great. For example, here's a search for Sony bluetooth headphones available on Amazon.ca for between CA$100 and $150: https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=site%3Aamazon.ca+%22C...

The range operator also works great with years, dates, though the Tools menu with shortcuts for before: and after: operators can help there too.

One I haven't seen mentioned yet but used to be documented is that you can leave out words in a phrase by replacing them with an asterisk. I'm having trouble not italicizing text in this comment box, so pretend \* means a single asterisk: "Stocks rose today by \* percent" as a search matches the phrase "stocks rose today, led by a 4.4 percent". (Which until this post, had only one result on Google.)

Note that it's not 100% exact matching, because for actually exact matches you have to select "Verbatim" under Tools > All Results in the menu below the search box on the results page.

The only downside to using all these operators is that you'll get very familiar and frustrated with the Google reCAPTCHA prompts as your search is "too precise to be human". Even when signed in to Google, especially often in Safari on an iPhone. Sigh.

[BeeOnRope]

You can use three asterisks in a row, surrounded by whitespace, to get a single asterisk like: "Stocks rose today by * percent".

Oddly, this results in a non-italicized asterisk in the output, contrary to reports in earlier comments that the resulting asterisk would be in italics. There is, however, a zero-length italicized string right before the asterisk in the HTML:

    "Stocks rose today by <i></i>* percent".

[JadeNB]

> Oddly, this results in a non-italicized asterisk in the output, contrary to reports in earlier comments that the resulting asterisk would be in italics. There is, however, a zero-length italicized string right before the asterisk in the HTML:

> "Stocks rose today by <i></i>* percent".

Sounds like the matching is something like

    /\<\*.*\*/

or maybe

    /\<\*[^*]*\*/

rather than

    /\<\*.+*/

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

Is there actually a page that says "too precise to be human" or are you just assuming this is what triggered the reCAPTCHA?

If there is such a page, can you give an example query that would trigger it?

[lstamour]

It mostly happens using "site:" queries which I use frequently to limit things to local websites (by domain) or for searching sites that have poor search engines (Amazon, for example). It rarely happens the first query, but often by the third or fourth modification or by the third or fourth page of results you visit, it will show a reCAPTCHA if it doesn't have enough "randomness" or doesn't think you're actually browsing Google and third-party sites the way others commonly do. (Robots are more likely to use search operators, for example, and more likely to pretend to be iPhones so they don't have to move the mouse, etc.)

My earlier query triggered it. Without a query, I can make the following text show up by going to https://www.google.com/sorry/index which when a relevant query is attached to the URL, it shows a reCAPTCHA for the search query, and also shows your IP address, etc.

> About this page

> Our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. This page checks to see if it's really you sending the requests, and not a robot. Why did this happen?

If you click the link "Why did this happen?" it says:

> This page appears when Google automatically detects requests coming from your computer network which appear to be in violation of the Terms of Service[1]. The block will expire shortly after those requests stop. In the meantime, solving the above CAPTCHA will let you continue to use our services.

> This traffic may have been sent by malicious software, a browser plug-in, or a script that sends automated requests. If you share your network connection, ask your administrator for help — a different computer using the same IP address may be responsible. Learn more[2]

> Sometimes you may be asked to solve the CAPTCHA if you are using advanced terms that robots are known to use, or sending requests very quickly.

[1]: https://www.google.com/policies/terms/ [2]: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/86640

The annoying part is that my account has never been whitelisted based on good behaviour. Instead, I end up seeing such reCAPTCHAs thousands of times a year, to the point where I stop counting them. Roughly half the time I'll answer the reCAPTCHA and the other half of the time, I'll close the tab and go do something else. Cloudflare site loading captchas are even worse, though. They delay the site by 5 seconds while they "check my browser", and then show an hCAPTCHA to solve, even when I'm already signed in with the first-party site. Very annoying, though the captcha is often easier to solve than Google's. The Cloudflare block often on streaming media websites. Ironically, Cloudflare's captchas have never prevented me from using commonly available Python scripts to watch streaming flash videos in VLC, they only block my web browsing...

I can only assume that Safari's excellent ad blocking and tracking prevention is causing my browsing traffic to stand out compared to others', enough that it prompts these CAPTCHAs more frequently.

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

You could try your site:amazon.ca specific queries on DDG. DDG will allow you to iterate your queries without triggering a reCAPTHA. When you believe you have the best results you can get on DDG, then try that same query on Google. This way you avoid doing the iteration on Google and triggering the reCAPTCHA. Instead you just do one search on Google. Google will usually give some additional results that were not shown in DDG.

[lstamour]

That's a good idea, yes, I'll have to try DDG if I hit a reCAPTCHA: Most of my searches don't start with me using advanced operators (except if I'm buying products in Canada because I'll generally use "site:ca" term then), I generally add the advanced operators when a basic search isn't working. And the reCAPTCHA doesn't kick in right away, so I'm not always reminded of the issue. But if I get hit by a reCAPTCHA, I might try DDG now instead. Thanks for the tip!