Google search operators explained by SEO Deutschland
Google search operators
Only a few years ago Google® was founded and rolled up the entire search engine market within a short time. The industry leader from Mountain View in California, is popular with users worldwide, especially for its efficient operation.
But Google® does a lot more than just searching for keywords or multiple search terms.
One way to work much more efficiently with Google® is to use search operators in conjunction with the search query. Many of them are also available – hidden under a graphical user interface – as an advanced search.
Below I introduce you to the various Google® search operators and give you some small examples of how to use them.
Your contact person
executive director
Google® search operators at a glance:
Operator: “”
Search for a search term in the exact wording, then put the term in quotation marks.
Example: “marsupilami”
Operator: +
For a search query, Google often renounces so-called “stopwords” such as: “and, the, the, in, etc., to still include the word in the search, they put a plus sign in front.
Example: Tim + and Struppi
Operator: allinanchor:
Links always have a link title, this is called “anchor”. If you would like to find a specific search term combination in the link title, from links to other websites, you can use this operator.
Example: allinanchor:Dream Hotel Florence
Operator: allintext:
Use this operator if you are looking for a Web page whose text should contain all the specified search terms.
Example: allintext:equality freedom fraternity
Operator: allintitle:
If you are looking for a website whose title should contain certain search terms, use this Google® operator.
Example: allintitle:Chinese alphabet
Operator: inurl:
This operator will find web pages in the URL of which the given search terms are available.
Example: inurl:google.com search operator
Operator: define:
If you would like Google® to explain the meaning of an abbreviation, an acronym or a term, then use this operator.
Example: define:WAP
Operator: ext:
You can use this operator if you are looking for a document in a specific file format (.doc, .pdf, etc.).
Example: lab rats ext:doc
Operator: inanchor:
The use of this operator is useful if you are only searching for a search term in the link text of a web page.
Example: inanchor:coati
Operator: insubject:
Can you just remember the title of a document? Then use this operator.
Example: insubject:human rights
Operator: site:
For example, if you want to get the number of pages that Google has indexed from your domain as the site operator, use this operator.
Example: site:www.yourdomain.de
Operator: info:
This operator provides an overview of various additional information offered by Google® via the URL entered. With one click you can then:
Operator: cache:
Do you want to know if any changes on your or a Google webpage are already indexed? Then use the cache query.
Example: cache:heise.de
If the search operator does not lead to a result when entering the corresponding field on Google, then enter the following URI directly into the address bar of your browser and replace “www.exampledomain.com” with your entry.
Example: webcache.googleusercontent.com/search
Operator: link:
This operator is supposed to show all referring links to the specified URL. However, personal experience shows that the results have no relation to reality at all. Thus, the URL www.heise.de has only 3,620 backlinks after a search query with the operator preceded. Other tools do not show less than 4.500.00 backlinks!
Even more specific search features from Google search. Stock market prices, weather and much more, can be found here.
