Many of us use Search engines on a daily basis to improve our effectiveness online. However, a surprising number of people have only a basic knowledge of their operation. They can be very powerful and focused, so to assist you I have a list of some available functions. Basic Operators
Quotes
OR
AND
NOT
seperated words
synonyms
definitions
+
Advanced Operators
allintext/intext
allintitle/intitle
allinanchor/inanchor
allinurl/inurl
info
related
link
site
...
safesearch
cache
date
filetype
stocks
Calculator Operators
Subtraction
Addition
Division
Multiplication
Percentage
sqrt()
Raise to the power
Conversion
Basic operators
Quotes
By wrapping a search term in quotation marks, such as “online search tools”, it will return pages containing that exact phrase.
OR
Putting OR between words will bring up pages holding any of the words.
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.
NOT
The not operator is written like this: alan -thomas
in the example above the results will return all pages that hold the word alan without the word thomas in them (so this page will not appear in the SERPs).
Separated words
e.g. Alan * Thomas
This will bring up pages that hold the words Alan and Thomas seperated by one or more words.
Synonyms
This is very handy. If you search for ~quiz then it will return pages that contain the word quiz or its synonyms eg. games and tests
Definitions
e.g. define:sic
This will bring back definitions of the word found on the web with links to the pages defining them and related phrases.
+
As a default search engines will to ignore ‘noise words’ such as ‘it,I,and’ etc.
If you need to explicitly search for these terms use the + operator e.g. george +it
Advanced operator Searches
allintext/intext:
This will bring up 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 URL or title and subsequent terms anywhere in the document.
allintitle/intitle:
using allintitle: before a search
e.g. allintitle: search engine optinization
This will return pages with the search terms in the title of the page. If you combine this with quotations you will 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.
allinanchor/inanchor:
This will bring up 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.
allinurl/inurl:
Another good SEO research tool for competitors is allinurl. This search works in the same way as allintitle, however it brings up 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.
info:
info:alexa.com
will give info about alexa.com
related:
related:alexa.com
returns a list of related pages (i.e. if you use the above example you get a list of search tools).
link:
e.g. link:apteambuild.com.org
Will return pages that are linked to a site.
This is largely useless in Google as it tends to return a small sample of results. You may prefer to use Yahoo! Site Explorer as it is a much more powerful research tool.
The link operator comes in handy in combination with the site operator.
for example
link:seomoz.org site:.edu
This will return a sample of the results that shows which sites with a .edu domain are linking to seomoz.org
It can be useful if you are looking for possible quality link opportunities, as you will see that some edu domains are linking to competitors.
site:
e.g. site:apteambuild.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.
…
using … between two numbers will search for numbers between two values
e.g. mp3player $70…$150.
safesearch:
typing safesearch: before a search will return filtered results removing all adult content
This would only be needed if you already have safesearch switched off in your profile.
cache:
This allows you to search a page’s cache for terms
e.g. cache:www.apteambuild.com seo
will highlight any instances of seo within the cached homepage of this site.
date:
you can search for pages that have been created within the last 3, 6, or 12 months
e.g. pear date:6
will return pages created within the last 6 months for the term pear.
filetype:
The filetype operator brings back documents of certain filetypes only
e.g. stats filetype:pdf
stocks:
The stocks operator will treat your search term as a stock ticker symbol and will return financial information
stocks:GOOG
Calculator Operators
Its also possible to use Google as a calculator.
Subtraction
e.g. 59 - 23
Addition
e.g. 38 + 25
Division
e.g. 64 / 14
Multiplication
e.g. 21 * 12
Percentage
e.g. 26% of 82
sqrt()
returns the square root of any number within the parenthesis
eg. sqrt(4)
Raise to the power
e.g 3^9
3 to the power of 9
conversion
e.g. 1 inch in cm
In conclusion, most people have only scratched the surface of Search's potential. This is by no means the definitive guide to Search, but I hope it has got you thinking.
