From brief checking in at mod room and global meta: - https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/24575/so-sites-dont-search-for-common-words - https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/62660/need-to-be-able-to-search-for-stop-words-on-english-se-because-they-are-often Basically: 1. yes it works like that 2. use Google instead **[update]** It seems that in future current search backend is getting scrapped and replaced with better solution, that will allow precise matching: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/160100/a-new-search-engine-for-stack-exchange