Using punctuation in Google search results is the reason for constant misunderstanding and rumors. Meaningful punctuation, like the “#” in C#, hyphens and apostrophes can have a direct effect on how Google serves results, and ranks your site.
I have summarized both the confirmed data and webmasters’ observations I’ve been coming across in the table below:
| Not ignored | “Meaningful” punctuation | C++ and C# | |
| Boolean operators | exact match | “free online encyclopedia” | |
| “exclude” the term (no space before the word it is related with) – don’t confuse with hyphen | dvd -player | ||
| “add” the term (no space) | advanced +search | ||
| Money signs | DVD player $400 | ||
| Underscore symbol (treated as a letter) | quick_sort | ||
| Advanced operators / shortcuts | colon between two words (no spaces) | site:google.com | |
| Synonym search | ~apple | ||
| Partially ignored / undefined | Hyphen | The mixture of hyphenated, single-word and two-word spelling variations [air-condition] and [air condition] | |
| Apostrophe | matts and matt’s and matts’ | ||
| Ignored | All the rest | Compare: apple, windows and apple windows and apple: windows and apple=windows | |
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