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Have you been there before, looking for that exact phrase, and finding related articles, but not the perfect one you know is there?

We’ve all been there. And we know a lot of you have been there, too. In a recent usability study of our website, we found that many of our users either didn’t know – or didn’t remember – that there is a quick and easy way to find exactly the phrase you’re looking for.

That way? Use quotation marks!

Using quotation marks around a phrase will tell the search engine to look for exactly the phrase you entered. For example:

“four year college”

will find articles that are about four year colleges while

four year college

will find articles about four buildings that took ten years to build on a community college campus and some articles about four year college.

So, next time you’re searching for a specific phrase remember: quotation marks.