Ask HN: Why do search terms like 'Generate -1 to 1' return nothing on Google?

2 pointsayepif4y ago2 comments

I found it surprising that the following search terms all return no results:

'generate uniform -1 to 1'

'uniform -1 to 1'

'bbc -1 to 1'

'google -1 to 1'

'-0 to 0'

But

'-1 to 1'

'X -1 to 1'

'0 to 1'

'1 to 0'

Work. Curiously

'-1 to 1' works

'-0 to 0' doesn't.

Does anybody have some working theories for why this might be?

2 comments

The minus sign excludes a term, for example "-Dell laptop" would result laptops where "Dell" isn't in the results.

By searching "-1 1" you're searching for the term "1"and then excluding all results with the term" 1".

yes but you can add quotes to avoid that from happening!

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