google search operators: power tips

Google Search Operators: Power Tips

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I am Granit DoshlakuCo-Founder & Digital Director at Manaferra.

You can find me at @granitdoshlaku

Hello!

Finding the data you need

Interesting facts about Google

◉ Every minute, 2 million searches are performed on Google.

◉ Google takes over 200 factors into account to deliver the best results for any query in a fraction of a second.

◉ Google processes around 20 petabytes 1015 or 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of information daily.

What are search operators? Let’s start with the definiton

1

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A search operator (sometimes referred to as a search parameter) is a character or string of characters used in a search engine query to

narrow the focus of the search.

Search Operators The following slides lists the search operators that

work with each Google search service.

Basic search operators

filetype:

Restricts the search results by file type extension – it’s great when you only want to look for images, PPT, PDF etc.

e.g. TED talk filetype:ppt for powerpoints, or TED talk filetype:doc if you’re looking for word documents instead.

Basic search operators

site:

Restricts the search results to a specific top level domain or standard domain - it's for when you want to get results from a specific site or only from .gov sites etc.

e.g. water on mars site:.gov for results from only .gov TLD and for site specific search you would use something like this life on mars site:nasa.gov

Basic search operators

related:

This is the operator you use to find other sites that are similar to the one you provide. It's great when you want to figure out who your organic competitors are.

e.g. search for related:spacex.com and you’ll find other companies who offer similar services. NOTE: DON'T add a space after the :, if you do Google will just do a keyword search. e.g. related: spacex.com

Basic search operators

cache:

You can see what a page looked like the last time Google visited the page, here is how Virgin Atlantic looked the last time Google visited them cache:virgingalactic.com

Basic search operators

Advanced search operators

allintext: / intext:Limits the search results to content that has the query terms you specify in the text on the page. allintext: should be used at the start of the query and will only return results that include all the included keywords. intext: can be used anywhere in the query and will only include the term immediately following the :.

e.g. Using allintext: hacker news ycombinator looks for results with all three words in the on-page text content. You can use hacker news intext:ycombinator to get results with ycombinator in the text and hacker or news appearing anywhere on the page.

Advanced search operators

allintitle: / intitle:If you start your query with allintitle: Google only shows you results containing pages that use all the query terms you specify in the meta title. When we search for allintitle:Life on Mars, Google looks for results with all these words in the meta title.

Advanced search operators

allinurl: / inurl:With the allinurl: operator Google shows you results containing pages that use all the query terms you specify in the url. When we search for allinurl: NASA, Google looks for results with NASA in the url.

Advanced search operators

AROUND()This operator allows you to specify keyword proximity by limiting the number of words that can appear between two keywords.

The AROUND() operator MUST BE IN CAPS and the number sets the max distance between the two terms. Say you want to asses the relationship between two terms ( petrol and diesel ) with your main keyword ( car ) you could do something like this car AROUND(2) petrol and car AROUND(2) diesel.

Advanced search operators

Difference between allin... and in...

◉ The allin.... operators should be used at the start of your query and can have a space after the :

◉ The NON allin.... versions can be used multiple times in a query and the term should be included after the : with no space.

◉ Something like allintitle: SpaceX Launch is the same as intitle:Spacex intitle:Launch

◉ allin.... operators can't be used with any other operators.

Are advanced search operators useful?

The real power of Google advanced search operators is in combining multiple operators to create custom query strings to get really targeted results.

Below you can find more information on how to use search operators effectively :

◉ Google: Search Operators

◉ MIT Libraries: Search Operators / Power Tips

◉ Gryffin: A Comprehensive Guide to Google Search Operators

Helpful resources

Read our blog at Manaferra.com for more technical tips on how to use search engines more effectively!

Any questions ?

You can find me at

◉ @granitdoshlaku◉ granit.doshlaku@manaferra.com

Thanks!