Question

Try the search string "filetype:xls username password -example" in Google.

What does the operator "-" before "example" do?

Answer 1

These are the refinements which could be applied to the search query while doing a Google search.

You can query google to search for particular things, you could specify certain file-types  to be returned in a search.

You can also query it to return results from specific domain names.

You can also include or exclude certain words from being in the search results.

Coming to your question '-' operator, is to exclude the results which contain the words present after - without a space.

Make sure you have a space before the operator and not after the operator.

In the example query given, filetype:xls username password -example,

The search returns results with file types of '.xls' extension only   and containing words 'username' and 'password'. It therefore as discussed, excludes the results containing the word 'example'.

You can relate to the screenshots with some more queries. *For educational & demonstration purposes-only.

1) The given query is understandable.*

2) This removes the results containing 'facebook' from the above results . No results which is obvious.*

3) Example *

4) Example *

**THANK YOU**

Answer 2

In Google search, the operator "-" before a keyword or search term is used to exclude specific results that contain that keyword. In the given search string "filetype:xls username password -example", the "-" operator is used to exclude results that contain the word "example". This means that the search results will not include any pages or documents that have the word "example" in them.