Google Speed-Search Lesson #5 - Case Sensitivity

« Ramsay Ramblings 12/6/2007

Google Speed-Search Lesson #5 - Case Sensitivity

December 8th, 2007 by Nick Ramsay

Here’s part five of my Google Speed-Search series. This post answers the question, is a Google search case sensitive?

What difference does case make?

Some search engines will return different results depending on whether you use upper or lower case characters. So, for example, if you type apple you’d get results for the fruit or technology giant. If you typed APPLE however, you’d get results for the Association to Promote and Protect the Lubec Environment, or the band All Punks Please Leave Earth.

Is a case sensitive search useful?

You could argue that a case sensitive search, such as the “apple” example above, would be useful. You could cut out results for fruit and iPods if you were looking for sites about the Lubec Environment. Unfortunately, you’d be pulling your hair out when you forget to capitalize names and places. Imagine getting different results for “Tokyo” and “tokyo”, or “Albert Einstein” and “albert einstein”.

Is Google sensitive to case in a search term?

No, fortunately not. Google is case insensitive. You can search for apple, APPLE, Apple, or even aPpLe and get the same results with each word.

Next: Google Speed-Search Lesson #6 - Wildcards

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Google Speed-Search Lesson #5 - Case Sensitivity

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