10 Google Operators for Advanced Search to Use Daily
Are you still using Google for search?
Yeah, I know. It sucks by now. Yet sometimes you have to.
These advanced search operators can help you find what you know must be there.
Using them you can unearth the hidden gems still covered up beyond all that crap that pollutes Google.
Sorry for being so outspoken. Yet I’m just voicing what my visitors say!
Are You an Advanced Searcher?
Why I’m an Advanced Searcher on Google?
I am using Google not as a searcher but as an search engine optimizer.
As I optimize websites and content for Google I have to look it up there.
Often highly optimized and very helpful content from my clients won’t get found.
Then I have to check what happened and why buggy Google hasn’t
- crawled
- indexed
- ranked it.
I apply so called advanced search operators to achieve this.
They aren’t that advanced once you know them btw. So don’t fret!
Still most people don’t use them.
You know once you check your search queries on Search Console.
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.
Thus I want to show you the Google operators I use daily to get better search results faster:
Google Fails to Find What You Want? Use These!
So you know there must be a useful search results somewhere?
You work for a client site and they have created highly valuable and relevant content that still can’t be found?
These are the Google search operators you will need the most! See below.
The actual examples are shown in square brackets to make distinguishable from the rest of the text!
[“”] quotation search: [“example search”]
The quotation marks as in [“example search”] help you find exactly what you want instead of both words randomly found in a document.
Exact search allows you to find sentences and expression whereas simple search just cuts out everything in between.
Often quotation marks change the results significantly even without dropping words!
Example: compare these two: obama muslim vs “obama muslim”.
[-] or minus: [example -search]
The minus or disambiguation search allows you to find instances of a term without another one.
Often a search query result will be combined with a popular yet irrelevant other term!
So when you look for a hotel and not an ex-president or politician you want to look for [trump – president].
Example: compare these searches: spears vs spears -britney
[site:] – or specific site search – [site:example.com]
The [site:] operator allows you to search a particular site on Google.
Why would you do that? Many sites do not even offer internal search.
Others change a lot so that you might know content shoudl be there but isn’t visible anymore.
Example: site:whitehouse.gov miserable failure
[OR] – the “or” operator aka both search – [example OR search]
So you are not sure which one of two (or more) things you want? Or you want both at once?
The “or” operator is your friend!
In cases where it does not matter which word you choose but you want to find both due to slight differences, also use OR!
Example: 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:] – the Google cache lookup – [cache:example.com]
A cache search retrieves a copy of a website page as archived by Google.
When a site is down or has been changed recently, a cache search will prove useful! Why?
A search query like [cache:example.com] will unearth the last version of the page saved by Google on their servers.
[filetype:] – the file type search – [example filetype:PDF]
You search for a particular resource that is more than a website page written in plain HTML?
You may want to use the file type search to speed things up!
An ebook will be searched for when you use the PDF or epup file type extension e.g.
Example: [seo 2.0 ebook filetype:pdf]
[inurl/allinurl:] – website address search – [allinurl:example]
Only documents which contain some or all of the keywords in the internet address
[intitle/allintitle:] – title (headline) search – [allintitle:example]
Only documents which contain some or all of the keywords in the title of the page
[*] – asterisk or also search – [example*]
Just compare the searches for sex, sex* and *sex*
[define:] – definition search – [define:example]
Instead of reading my blog for ages, just search for define:SEO
Why Use Search Operators? It’s Not Just a Time Saver!
Using these search operators will save you tons of time.
Yet you will also experience much less frustration.
Last but not least you will have the results you were looking for in the first place.
Just imagine saving 30 seconds per search query you want to locate!
30 seconds per search query mean half an hour a day if you search the web 100 times a day (like I sometimes do).
That’s literally adding up so that you will one day be able to go to Mars as in the popular band name “30 Seconds to Mars”.
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.