Google Wildcard Searches Explained: How Wildcards Work (and Don’t Work) Today

In the past, navigating databases of any kind meant that you had to learn a certain amount of database shorthand. This is how research librarians, for example, could navigate massive amounts of information wickedly fast — they’d mastered Boolean search terms.

Since the internet is basically the most enormous database human beings have ever created, search jargon was originally the best way to navigate its structure. With the rise of intent-focused search results, however, natural language recognition has replaced simple syntax structure.

What does this mean for your website and marketing strategy? One of the main takeaways of the internet’s evolution is how wildcards have changed — and what to replace them with now. 

Why Google Wildcard Searches Are Still Confusing

Google’s wildcard search was once hailed as a great way to conduct keyword and competitor research. Just add an asterisk to your search term, and Google will fill in the blank with trending terms! What could be easier?

Unfortunately, the internet today is a lot more sophisticated. Wildcard searches still exist and have specific uses, but they aren’t a foolproof tool for keyword research in an AI-driven internet age.

What Is a Wildcard Search?

A wildcard in Google Search uses a special character, like the asterisk (*), as a placeholder for one or more words. Essentially, the asterisk tells Google to fill in the blank in your search phrase. Each special symbol ( -, +, $) has its own purpose. The asterisk is the one most commonly referred to as the wildcard. 

Historically, wildcards were useful for navigating the inconsistencies of the internet. For example, typing “clothing m*n” would show results for clothing for MEN and clothing for MAN, ensuring that your results didn’t leave out different spellings or confusing pluralizations. 

Difference between Wildcard Search and Regex

Wildcard searches are often confused with regular expressions, or regex, since both search methods use special symbols.

A wildcard in Google Search uses short, simple symbols that generally return broad results. It primarily searches file names. For example, a wildcard search for *.jpeg will return every file with a .jpeg extension in the directory, since * stands for any file name here.

Regex allows for fine-tuned, highly specific searches, especially of programming code. It primarily searches file contents. While some Google Analytics tools have regex capability, the main Google.com search engine doesn’t use them. A regex search is far more complicated, with brackets, braces, and special characters having more specific meanings that differentiate them from wildcard searches. The meanings of the symbols do not always overlap. In most cases, only an experienced programmer will be using regex.

 

Does Google Support Wildcard Searches?

The short answer — only partially. Let’s break that down. 

Yes, you can still use wildcards to fill in missing words. So a search like “best vacation spots for * in Mexico” might fill in the asterisk with terms like:

• Families
• Honeymooners
• First-timers
• Retirees

Google Search wildcards do not support multiple spellings, plurals, or inconsistencies any longer — as with the common man/men example. This is because semantic search can largely interpret user intent without strict adherence to spelling or pluralization. As natural-language search becomes the norm, special characters are expected to become outdated. 

How the Google Wildcard Character (*) Actually Works

These days, the Google wildcard character performs differently than it used to. Historically, it was used as a fill-in-the-blank signal to look up trending keywords or top-ranking competitor articles. Today, it is simply a placeholder for one or more words. 

When using a Google Search wildcard character in the real world, Google will still try to interpret your intent. So the * can be useful for looking up forgotten phrases — like “only the * die young” will help you remember the Billy Joel lyric, with * replaced by the word “good.” 

Bottom line: a wildcard search will not give you fine-tuned results of your own or a competitor’s website.

Google Wildcard Search Examples (What Works vs. What Doesn’t)

Here’s what works in a semantic-driven internet:

Google wildcard search example: “best tax prep * in Atlanta” will fill in the blank with common words like “provider,” “software,” or “company.” 

What won’t work:

Google wildcard search example: “Sm*th Tax Prep Firm” will not fill in the blank for different spellings like “Smith,” “Smyth,” and “Smythe.” 

Using a wildcard Google Search word won’t give you variations of a single word anymore — it can just replace whole words within phrases.

Why some Google Wildcard Search Examples Seem to Work (But Don’t Actually)

If you try to run an old-style wildcard Google search like “Sm*th Tax Prep Firm,” you might still get results for Smith and Smythe tax prep services. Google isn’t actually using wildcard logic here, though. It’s using one of its more advanced, intent-based tools, like:

• Autocomplete
• Spelling variation inclusion
• Proximity search 

Google includes all of these automatically these days, meaning the wildcard search isn’t as necessary as it used to be. 

Common Misconceptions About Google Wildcards

You’ve probably seen a lot of articles online hailing wildcard searches as the secret to uncovering hidden keyword opportunities or conducting competitor research. While these strategies were helpful a few years ago, they’re mostly outdated now. 

What Google wildcards don’t do:

• Expand partial words (this function no longer operates) 
• Encompass multiple spellings (Google does this automatically now) 
• Replace keyword research tools (your search engine is still going to try to satisfy your intent) 

Remember, the internet is a huge database, so shorthand signifiers used to be a good way to navigate this directory. Now that the internet has evolved, trying to “force” certain results from wildcards in Google search just won’t deliver accurate or actionable results that are particularly helpful for marketers. 

Wildcard Searches vs. Other Google Search Operators

So are there useful alternatives to the wildcard Google search, or is everything natural language processing now? While the Google wildcard operator isn’t as useful as it used to be, there are other operators that can still aid your research and development efforts.

Here are some of the most useful:

• Quotation marks (“ ”) — These stand for exact phrase matching. For example, “Shrek 2 movie” will only give you results for that exact phrase.
• Site: — This restricts your results to a single website or domain. It’s very useful for searching only your site or only your top competitor’s site. 
• Intitle: — This requires a specific keyword to appear in the title tag of page results. It can be a good way to see what competitors are publishing about a certain topic. 
• Inurl: — Just like “intitle,” but the keyword needs to appear in the page’s URL.
• Minus (-) — This removes certain results from a query. It is useful for terms with different meanings depending on the context.

For example, if you search “what does a wildcard mean,” you might get results related to Google search, but you might also get a lot of sports-related results. You could include the minus (-) operator in your search with the word “football” to filter out those results. 

Are Google Wildcard Searches Useful for SEO Today?

Wildcard search Google strategies typically aren’t the most effective way to conduct keyword research these days. While they might still give you some very broad ideas of where to start your SEO efforts, they won’t deliver the kind of granular detail that modern SEO keyword research tools do. 

They can help you identify some common phrasings in Google search. For example, a wildcard search for “best * in downtown Chicago” might show you common service-related searches for your neighborhood. 

When Wildcards Still Make Sense (and When They Don’t)

We recommend using wildcard searches during the ideation phase of your content strategy. For example, if you run a local credit union and you aren’t sure what to blog about, opening an incognito window on Google and running a few wildcard searches related to personal banking can give you a head start on customer inquiries. 

Once you move into the technical phase of specific keyword research and optimization, wildcard searches aren’t going to help you identify high-opportunity keywords. Intent modeling is a much better way to do this. While user intent is a whole other topic, within SEO, it can be summarized as: what your audience is searching for + high-intent keywords = what you should be optimizing for. 

Google Wildcards Are a Tool, Not a Shortcut

At the end of the day, you can use Google wildcard searches as a useful starting point, especially when you’re brainstorming; it’s not a shortcut to “hacking” Google. Today’s internet relies on sophisticated interpretation of customer intent, not using syntax database codes. The modern internet is for everyone, not just coders or librarians. There are many modern tools available to help you match your website to high-intent customer searches. No need to stay stuck in 2005! 

FAQs: Everything You Need to Know About Google Wildcard Search

If there’s one thing that’s constant, it’s change. At SEO Design Chicago, our expert marketing team keeps up with all the latest changes to search engines like Google, Bing, and even ChatGPT, so you don’t have to.

Here’s the latest on wildcard search in Google. 

What is a wildcard search in Google?

Wildcard search in Google uses the asterisk operator (*) as a placeholder for missing words within a search phrase. These days, it only functions within phrases, not within individual words. 

Does Google support wildcard searches like other search engines?

No, Google doesn’t support full wildcard or regex searches the way other databases or search engines do. Google prioritizes human intent understanding, rather than formal search abbreviations more suited for specialty databases. 

What does the Google wildcard character (*) actually do?

The wildcard character replaces a missing word or words within a search phrase. It doesn’t work as a filler for incomplete words or for character strings. For example, “keto diet *” will replace the asterisk with common words like “recipes,” “meal plans,” or “nutrition tracker.” It can be a useful way to brainstorm content ideas or search a website for anything related to the keto diet. A search like “ket*” will just activate Google’s autocorrect feature, while random characters will give even less accurate results. 

Why don’t Google wildcard searches work the way people expect?

It all depends on when and where you learned how to search. Some of us learned “database logic,” where we treat the internet as a massive card catalog that requires exact pattern matching to find what we need. 

Today’s Google search functions by decoding user intent. Approaching it with strict pattern-matching logic will give you confusing or inaccurate results, because Google is trying to figure out what you, the user, actually want, not just scanning a list for exact matches. 

Can wildcard searches help with keyword research?

Google wildcard searches can be useful during the brainstorming phase, but they don’t provide an accurate picture of user intent, conversion rate, or keyword cost — all more useful metrics in modern SEO.