While using Google not only as a searcher but also as a search engine aka website optimizer I apply so called advanced search operators which in fact aren’t that advanced once you know them. Still most people don’t use them. You know once you check your website referrers. Most people do not use any operators at all!
What is an operator in the first place? It’s just a command that makes Google look for more exact matches of what you want.
So I want to show you the Google operators I use daily to get better search results faster:
“”
Exact search allows you to find sentences and expression whereas simple search just cuts out everything in between, often it changes the results significantly even without dropping words, compare these two:
obama muslim vs “obama muslim”.
- (minus)
Compare these searches: spears vs spears -britney
site:
Search on a site. Consider this example site:whitehouse.gov miserable failure
OR
In cases where it does not matter which word you choose but you want to find both due to slight differences, use OR:
drilling mccain OR obama – not to mix up with a query like [mccain or obama]
viagra OR levitra – here you do not ask which one is better as in “Viagra or Levitra?” but you want to search both to choose from.
cache:
When a site is down or has been changed recently, a search like cache:site.com will unearth the last version saved by Google on their servers
filetype:
Consider a search query like: seo book filetype:pdf
inurl/allinurl:
Only documents which contain some or all of the keywords in the internet address
intitle/allintitle:
Only documents which contain some or all of the keywords in the title of the page
*
Just compare the searches for sex, sex* and *sex*
define:
Instead of reading my blog for ages, just search for define:SEO
Using these operators will save you tons of time as searching is done dozens of hundreds of times daily. 30 seconds per search query mean half an hour a day if you search the web 100 times a day (like I do).
Update August 16th, 2011: There is an excellent overview of even more advanced search operators over at Google Guide. Thank you for the link Michalis Nicolaides!
Related posts:
- Google Suggest Effects on SEO, Search Usage and Business Predictions
- Search: 8 Reasons Why Wolfram Alpha is a Waste of Time and no Threat to Google
- What is Advanced SEO?
- Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov – When will it come to your Website?
- Keyword Research: SEO 2.0 on the Rise – Says Google “Insights”
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This thing has 12 Comments
Good tips for those who aren’t aware of these handy Google operators. They definitely make searching much easier.
Please use a real or company name as “name” not generic keywords.
oh great tips you highlighted most people miss while searching on web and most people dont really care even if they do know about them i use site:your site url to see how many pages google indexed of my blog.
Yeah, people scroll, search again etc. instead of just adding a parameter. This way they waste time and do not find what they seek.
Good post – I’ve been using all but the intitle and inurl parameters.
You aren’t serious about not reading your blog and using define operator instead, are you? I hope not :)
I think these operators are also useful
info: gives information about a webpage
link: will list pages that have links to the specified webpage
The tips are great. I knew a few, but thank you for clearing up the rest. Search engines are good tools when you know how to use them.
Great tips.
i only often use “site” and i think “link” is also useful too.
Those are sine nice list operators that I’ll need to keep in mind since many of those are new to me! 2 Thumbs up!!
Don’t forget you can combine operators to really narrow your search. One good use is to take away a site from results, example -site:http://blah.com
There are many many more and you can combine them for more specific results. I have found a good guide here http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators.html and there is explanation for every operator. Nice simple post.
Hey Michalis,
thank you. Excellent addition. My post is more an intro and an explanation, so my list is of course not complete.
I’ll add your link to the post.