Google Search Commands

6 Comments December 20, 2005 2214 Views

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For most of us, Google is the search engine of choice. We use Google to do research or when we are looking for something in the web. When we want to do a search, we type the keyword/s and then click “Enter”. That’s how you do a search, right? Right. But a lot of people do not know that Google lets you make use of operator commands. Operator commands are special query words that have special meaning in the Google database which does a “unique” kind of search. Below is a list of Google search commands which will help you narrow your search down a bit.

link:www.yoursite.com - This command will show you all of the backlinks to your site. Handy tool for finding out who is linking to you.

related:www.yoursite.com - This command will show you a list of pages that Google thinks are related to your site in some way.

site:www.yoursite.com - Searches only those pages from the site you list.

allinurl: - If you start a query with [allinurl:], Google will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the url. For instance, [allinurl: google search] will return only documents that have both “google” and “search” in the url.

define: - The query [define:] will provide a definition of the words you enter after it, gathered from various online sources. The definition will be for the entire phrase entered (i.e., it will include all the words in the exact order you typed them).

inurl: - If you include [inurl:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the url. For instance, [inurl:google search] will return documents that mention the word “google” in their url, and mention the word “search” anywhere in the document (url or no). Note there can be no space between the “inurl:” and the following word.

allintitle: - If you start a query with [allintitle:], Google will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the title. For instance, [allintitle: google search] will return only documents that have both “google” and “search” in the title.

intitle: - If you include [intitle:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the title. For instance, [intitle:google search] will return documents that mention the word “google�? in their title, and mention the word “search” anywhere in the document (title or no). Note there can be no space between the “intitle:” and the following word.

cache: - If you include other words in the query, Google will highlight those words within the cached document. For instance, [cache:www.subnixus.com web] will show the cached content with the word “web” highlighted.

info: - The query [info:] will present some information that Google has about that web page. For instance, [info:www.google.com] will show information about the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the “info:” and the web page url.

spell: - Does a spell check of any given word.

stocks: - If you begin a query with the [stocks:] operator, Google will treat the rest of the query terms as stock ticker symbols, and will link to a page showing stock information for those symbols. For instance, [stocks: intc yhoo] will show information about Intel and Yahoo. (Note you must type the ticker symbols, not the company name.)

filetype: - Does a search for a specific file type, or, if you put a minus sign (-) in front of it, it won’t list any results with that filetype.

daterange: - Is supported in Julian date format only. 2452384 is an example of a Julian date.

maps: - Is a shortcut to do a google maps search.

phone: - Searches for anything that looks like a phone number.

allinlinks: - Searches only within links, not text or title.

allintext: - searches only within text of pages, but not in the links or page title.

You can see the complete list of Google operator commands here.

*taken from Subnixus.com