To exclude a word in a Google search, prefix it with what symbol?

• A. Exclamation mark
• B. Asterisk
• C. Plus sign
• D. Hyphen

Answer: (D)

Excluding a word in Google search is done by prefixing the term with a hyphen, i.e., the minus sign. This acts as a NOT operator, telling Google to omit any results that contain that word. The hyphen should be attached directly to the word with no space. For example, searching for "jaguar -car" will show results about the animal without bringing in results about the car.

Other symbols don’t serve this exclusion function in standard Google searches. An exclamation mark isn’t the exclusion tool used by Google. An asterisk is a wildcard that stands in for unknown words, not a way to remove a term. The plus sign used to be about forcing inclusion in some contexts, but Google largely ignores it for exclusion, so it won’t reliably filter out that word.