Advanced Google Search Operators

Google search does a pretty good job of showing what you want based on your search term. If you search “seo consultant” you will be shown results of seo consultants and the results will be shown according to your location. Most of the time this will do the trick. If you want to drill things down a little more or a lot more use advanced Google search operators.

These operators are useful to anyone but if you are a content writer, webmaster or SEO they can be extremely valuable.

A common one you might find useful on a regular basis is the quotes “search term”. This will narrow the result to include exactly what you are looking for.  

Google sometimes notifies users that a specific search term for a specific result  is excluded. If you select to include the term in all results, this tells Google you want to search for that exact term. It is the same as add quotes. You can do this at the time of your original search – “original search”.  

The “site:” operator is another you many find useful for searching a specific website or multiple websites at the same time.

Intext 

The example below will return document results that contain “SEO” anywhere in the text and “Jeremy Morrison” anywhere in the document. 

Jeremy Morrison: SEO 

Allintext 

This will return results that coontain “seo consultants toronto” in the text. 

allintext:seo consultants toronto 

Inposttitle 

Search the titles of posts that contain any of the search terms: “pizza” “pepperoni” “canada”  or all of them, in any order. 

inposttitle: pepperoni pizza canada 

Allintitle 

Search for pists that contain all of the words “pepperoni pizza canada” 

allintitle:pepperoni pizza canada 

Intitle 

This will return pages that contain “advanced search operators”, in the Tital Tag 

intitle:advanced search operators 

Allinurl 

Google search results will consist of only URL’s that contain “vacation rentals” 

allinurl:vacation rentals 

Inurl 

Google will display results that contain either “vacation” or “rentals” or both in the URL. 

Inurl:vacation rentals 

Allinanchor 

This search operator will return results that contain “vacation rentals” in the anchor text of links. 

allinanchor:”vacation rentals” 

Inanchor 

Google will display results that contain either “vacation” or “rentals” or both in the anchor text of links. 

inanchor:”vacation rentals” 

Cache 

This operator lets you find cached web pages.   

cache:mentseo.com 

Alternatively, you search for the URL as you normally would and click on the 3 dots next to the results link. 

Filetype 

Search any website for specific file type. 

site:mentseo.com filetype:pdf – inurl:mentseo.com/example 

@ SYMBOL 

Limit your search to social media only. 

mentseo @facebook 

Search for the twitter accounts of a single company 

This will show CBS News accounts. Use the “inurl” to omit twitter status’s, hashtags and lists. 

site:twitter @cbsnews –inurl:status –inurl:hashtag –inurl:lists 

Or

This operator will return results that relate to both “vacation rentals” and “short term rental”. Or just results for one term could be returned. 

vacation rental OR short term rental 

Quotes (“word”) 

Typing this in Google search will display and exact match to the terms used inside the quotes. This is also useful if you want to find duplicate content. 

“seo consultants in toronto” 

Add words: (+) 

To ensure your desired search terms will be included in the results use: 

seo consultant +technical seo 

Exclude Words: (-) 

If you search “seo consultants” and you are located in Toronto but do not want results to show consultants in Toronto. You exclude the word Toronto from your search.  

-toronto 

“Wildcard: (*)“

“Top * ranking factors” 

“Site:” 

This will display results of all the pages Google has indexed for mentseo.com (for the most part). 

“site:mentseo.com” 

Multiple sites 

Same use as above but will search multiple sites at the same time for your search term. This example shows results for the song “by my side” on beatport, traxxsource and soundcloud. If the song is listed on the website 

“By my side” site:beatport.com site:traxxsource.com site:soundcloud.com 

“Related:” 

Find websites that relate to mentseo.com 

related:mentseo.com 

“Info:“

Find information across the web that relates to a particular domain. 

info:mentseo.com 

Search between two specific years 

To ask Google to show you results between two different years just put two dots between the years. 

1971..1974