[Web4lib] Why use the plus symbol before search terms when googling?

[Jeremy Dunck]

On 9/7/05, Isabelle Laplante <ilaplante at cdc.qc.ca> wrote:
> the plus sign is important in languages with accentuated letters.
> With the plus sign, you tell Google to search "exactly" this sequence of
> letters (even a sensitivity on uppercase-lowercase).
> Example in french:
> +collégial
> is not the same as
> +collegial

And the tilde ("~") is for the opposite: search on "running", and
you'll find just pages with running, but "~running" searches on stems,
and so matches "runner" as well.