Advanced Search Operators
I was chatting with my girlfriend in Starbucks about search (cos we are geeks), and I was surprised to hear that there are still people out there that do not know how to do more than the most basic search.
Search engines can be so powerful and focused , so I thought I would put together a list as I am yet to find a single page on which all the ones that I know can be found.
In this post:
Basic operators
Quotes
Wrapping a search term in quotation marks, for example “search engine optimization” will return pages containing that exact phrase.
AND
This is the default method of searching, if you put in two words it will search for the first word AND the second word within a document
OR
Putting OR between words will bring back pages holding any of the words
NOT
The not operator is written like this: kev -price
in the example above the results will return any page that holds the word kev without the word price in them (so this page will not appear in the SERPs).
Synonyms
I think this is fairly cool. If I search for ~quiz then it will return pages that contain the word quiz or its synonyms eg. games and tests.
Separated words
e.g. Kev * Price
This will bring back pages that hold the words Kev and Price seperated by one or more words.
Definitions
e.g. define:idiom
This will bring back definitions of the word found on the web with links to the pages defining them and related phrases.
+
By default search engines tend to ignore ‘noise words’ such as ‘and, I, it’ etc.
If you wish to explicitly search for these terms use the + operator
e.g. william +I
Advanced operator Searches
allintitle/intitle:
using allintitle: before a search
e.g. allintitle: search engine optimization
Will return pages with the search terms in the title of the page.
Combine this with quotations to discover pages that are directly targeting your keywords
eg. allintitle: “search engine optimization”
using intitle: will return results for pages which have the next term in the title and subsequent terms anywhere in the document
allinurl/inurl:
Another good SEO competitor research tool is allinurl.
This search works in the same way as allintitle however brings back pages with the terms in the URL of the page
using inurl: will return results for pages which have the next term in the URL and subsequent terms anywhere in the document
allintext/intext:
Will bring back pages that have the terms in the body text of the page, but not in the title or URL
using intext: will return results for pages which have the next term in the body text of the page, but not in the title or URL and subsequent terms anywhere in the document
allinanchor/inanchor
Will bring back pages that have the terms in the link anchor text.
using inanchor: will return results for pages which have the next term in anchor text and subsequent terms anywhere in the document
site:
e.g. site:kevprice.com seo
site: only returns results from one website. So the above example searches this website for the term seo and returns pages only from this site.
link:
e.g. link:seomoz.org
Returns pages that are linking to a site.
This is mostly useless in Google as it tends to return a small sample of results. I prefer to use Yahoo! Site Explorer as it is a much more powerful research tool.
I do find the link operator handy in combination with the site operator.
for example
link:seomoz.org site:.edu
Will return a sample of the results showing which sites with a .edu domain are linking to seomoz.org
It can be handy for looking for potential quality link opportunities as you can see some edu domains are linking to competitors.
info:
info:google.com
will give info about google.com
related:
related:google.com
returns a list of related pages (i.e. if you use the above example you get a list of search engines)
…
using … between two numbers will search for numbers between two values
e.g. ipod £50…£100
date:
you can search for pages that have been created within the last 3, 6, or 12 months
e.g. apple date:3
will return pages created within the last 3 months for the term apple.
safesearch:
typing safesearch: before a search will return filtered results removing adult content
This is only required if you already have safesearch switched off in your profile.
cache:
allows you to search a page’s cache for terms
e.g. cache:www.kevprice.com seo
will highlight any instances of seo within the cached homepage of this site.
stocks:
The stocks operator treats your search term as a stock ticker symbol and returns financial information
stocks:GOOG
filetype:
The filetype operator brings back documents of certain filetypes only
e.g. stats filetype:pdf
Calculator Operators
Its also possible to use Google as a calculator.
Addition
e.g. 42 + 37
Subtraction
e.g. 42 - 37
Multiplication
e.g. 42 * 37
Division
e.g. 42 / 37
Percentage
e.g. 42% of 37
Raise to the power
e.g 3^9
3 to the power of 9
sqrt()
returns the square root of any number within the parenthesis
eg. sqrt(-1)
conversion
e.g. 1 inch in cm
In Summary
Search is such a powerful tool and most people only touched the tip of the iceberg.
This is not a definitive guide, however i hope it covers most of the bases. if I have missed anything obvious please let me know.