The ever-increasing streams of news can be daunting and overwhelming. With the rise of online news sources, it can be difficult to keep track of what is being reported. Google has made it easy to discover the latest news on any topic you want. Google Search has a dedicated news feed that shows the latest news on the topics you searched.

However, sometimes you don't want to see just the popular news. You may also want to see the negative news pieces. Whether it's to research a company to understand its current situation or to see a company's history for making investment choices, you can find negative news stories with a few simple tricks.

While these tricks work on any smartphone, we recommend you use a desktop computer like one of these best Chromebooks, as you get more screen real estate. Here's how to do a negative news search on Google.

Digging up negative news with Google searches

Nowadays, it's easy to find information about anyone or anything, thanks to our interconnected online world. However, if you're looking for negative news, it might feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. Corporate giants around the world have great PR relations that bombard the news streams with positive news, making it harder for you to find negative news about them.

Negative news or adverse media is a good source of information for financially savvy individuals. So knowing how to do a negative news search on Google is of utmost importance, so you can be sure that you have all the information before making any decisions.

Conduct a negative news search using advanced Google Search operators

Google Search operators or advanced search operators are special symbols and terms that help you refine your search results. If you're looking for negative or adverse news on a topic, use these advanced Google Search operators to find things that a regular Google Search query might not fetch.

Use the exact-match search operator

The best-advanced search operator that can help you find adverse news easily is the "exact-match search" operator. When you search for a query on Google, by default, the search engine shows you the most relevant results according to its algorithm. However, the algorithm may push negative news pieces down the first few pages of Google Search, and you will never find them.

To force Google to show only search results that exactly match your search query, perform an exact-match search. To do an exact-match search, put your search term inside quotes. Now, Google puts those results first that exactly match your search query.

1. Exact-match search

Restrict search to specific sources

There is no shortage of news sources, and not all of them are reliable. If there's a new source you prefer and trust to do the real reporting, restrict your search to your preferred sources to unravel negative news. In Google Search, type source:source-name, followed by your search term. Google Search shows results from your preferred news source first.

Restrict search to specific sources

These two search operators can help you conduct a negative news search on Google. Check out our guide for more advanced Google Search operators and improve your search.

Google has deprecated the plus (+) and AND search operators. Using them will not refine your search results.

Use Google Advanced Search to filter search results

You must filter out as much junk news as possible to find adverse news or negative media on a person or company. For example, if you're looking for negative news on Mr. John Doe, filter the search results by the location, language of news sources, time of news, and more.

To do this, use the Google Advanced Search feature to filter search results. Here's how to do it:

  1. Visit the Google Search home page and open Settings.
    Use Google Advanced Search to filter search results 1
  2. Open the Advanced Search setting.
    Use Google Advanced Search to filter search results 2
  3. Under the Find Pages with menu, enter your search terms. You can search for all words in your search query, the exact match of your search query, any word in your search query, and more.
    Use Google Advanced Search to filter search results 3
  4. Filter the search result by using the options below Then narrow your results by menu. You can filter by language, region, last update, site or domain (news source), and more.
    Use Google Advanced Search to filter search results 4
  5. Set the filters to find the negative search results and click the Advanced Search option.
    Use Google Advanced Search to filter search results 5
  6. The search query shows the negative search results.
    Use Google Advanced Search to filter search results 6

You can use the above methods to find negative news using Google Search. When doing a negative news search, ensure that you are patient and try different search queries to get the best results.

It doesn't guarantee that you can uncover everything, but it will increase your chances of doing so. When you're done with your research, delete your Google Search history to keep it from prying eyes.