Google Search Operators Explained with Examples
Everyone knows how to “Google” but very few know how to really “Google” like a Genius.
If you can find what you are looking for on Google fast – think how much time you are saving. A classic example of knowledge that truly helps be efficient and effective.
Today I am going to share with you Google search tricks. Tricks or Tips that will help find what you are looking for fast. A couple of years back I learned two tricks and never thought I was missing much more. Without taking more time lets begin.
- Google Search usually ignores punctuation that isn’t part of a search operator.
- Don’t put spaces between the symbol or word and your search term. A search for site:nytimes.com will work, but site: nytimes.com won’t.
- Refine image searches
- Use filters like region or file type to narrow your results.
What are Google Search Operators
Google search operators are special commands that extend the capabilities of regular text searches on Google.
Search operators help you narrow down search results and can be useful for everything from content research to finding online discussions to technical SEO site audits.
How do I use Google Search Operators
It’s as simple as searching for something on Google. You can enter search operators directly into the Google search box just as you would a text search.
Except in special cases (such as the “in” operator), Google will return standard organic results.
You can use symbols and/or words in your search terms to make your results more accurate.
Keep in mind:
- Google typically ignores any punctuation that isn’t part of a search operator.
- Don’t include spaces between the symbol or word and your search term. Using this search command, site:ZabiNiazi.com will work, but this site: ZabiNiazi.com won’t.
What File Types Do Google Search Operators Support
I’m glad you asked. Here is a list of the supported formats:
- Adobe Flash (.swf)
- Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf)
- Adobe PostScript (.ps)
- Autodesk Design Web Format (.dwf)
- Google Earth (.kml, .kmz)
- GPS eXchange Format (.gpx)
- Hancom Hanword (.hwp)
- HTML (.htm, .html, other file extensions)
- Microsoft Excel (.xls, .xlsx)
- Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx)
- Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx)
- OpenOffice presentation (.odp)
- OpenOffice spreadsheet (.ods)
- OpenOffice text (.odt)
- Rich Text Format (.rtf)
- Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg)
- TeX/LaTeX (.tex)
- Text (.txt, .text, other file extensions)
- Basic source code (.bas)
- C/C++ source code (.c, .cc, .cpp, .cxx, .h, .hpp)
- C# source code (.cs)
- Java source code (.java)
- Perl source code (.pl)
- Python source code (.py)
- Wireless Markup Language (.wml, .wap)
- XML (.xml)
when I "Site:ZabiNiazi.com" check my website in Google, it only shows 28 instead of 180 URLs.
Google Search Operators List
Here is a complete list of all working Google advanced search operators:
- “search term” Use this to do an exact-match search.
- OR Search for this OR that. This will return results related to the two terms or both.
- AND Search for this AND that. This will only return results related to the two terms
- – Exclude a term or search phrase.
- * Acts as a wildcard and will match any word or phrase.
- ( )Groups multiple terms or operators to control how the search is shown.
- $ Search for prices.
- define: Displays the meaning of a word in a card-like result.
- Cache: Returns the most recent cached version of a web page (as long as the page is indexed).
- filetype: Shows results of a certain filetype (PDF, DOCX, TXT, PPT, etc.)
- site: Limit results to a specific website.
- related: Find sites related to another site.
- intitle: Find pages that contain a specific word in the title.
- allintitle: Like “intitle,” this finds web pages containing all of the specific words in the page title.
- inurl: Finds pages with a certain word in the URL.
- allinurl: Similar to “inurl,” this finds web pages containing all of the URL’s specific words.
- intext: Finds pages containing a specific word in the content.
- allintext: Finds results containing all of the specific words somewhere on the page.
- AROUND(X) This proximity search finds pages containing two words (or phrases) within X words of each other.
- weather: Finds the weather for a specific location.
- stocks: See stock information
- map: View map results for a location search.
- movie: Finds information about a specific movie.
- in Convert one unit into another (like currencies, weights, temperatures, etc.)
- source: Find news results from a certain source within Google News.
Common Search Techniques
Search For An Exact Image Size
Right after the word you’re looking for, add the text imagesize:widthxheight. Make sure to add the dimensions in pixels.
Example: imagesize:500×400
Common Search Techniques
Search social media
Put @ in front of a word to search social media. For example: @twitter.
Search For A Price
Put $ in front of a number. For example: camera $400.
Search Hashtags
Put # in front of a word. For example: #throwbackthursday
Exclude Words From Your Search
Put – in front of a word you want to leave out. For example, jaguar speed -car
Search For An Exact Match
Put a word or phrase inside quotes. For example, “tallest building”.
Search Within A Range Of Numbers
Put .. between two numbers. For example, camera $50..$100.
Combine Searches
Put “OR” between each search query. For example, marathon OR race.
Search For A Specific Site
Put “site:” in front of a site or domain. For example, site:youtube.com or site:.gov.
Search For Related Sites
Put “related:” in front of a web address you already know. For example, related:time.com.
See Google’s Cached Version Of A Site
Put “cache:” in front of the site address.
Important: Not all search operators return exhaustive results.
Google Search Operators: 40 Commands to Know in 2023
Find related sites
related:[website]
Find Pages to Add Internal Links
Site:[website] keyword
Find internal link opportunities with the site: search operator
Now you can just go into those pages and add an internal link. UX improved, as well as your chances to score sitelinks. Not bad, uh?
Search Content on a Specific Site (And Find Any Indexation Errors)
site:[website]
Find Exact Matches
“[search term]”
Exclude Specific Words or Phrases
-[keyword]
Include Specific Words or Phrases
keyword1 +keyword2
Return the cached version of a page
cache:[website]
Search for Specific Keywords in a URL
inurl:[keyword]
Find Keywords in Page Titles
intitle:
Find Exact Keywords in Page Titles
allintitle:
Find Keywords Inside Page Text
intext:
Find Exact Keywords Inside Page Text
allintext:
Find Keywords Inside Anchor Texts
inanchor:
Find Exact Keywords Inside Anchor Texts
allinanchor:
Find Keywords Within URLs
inurl:
Find Exact Keywords Within URLs
allinurl:
Find Content Created by Specific Authors
postauthor:
Search A Specific Location
loc:
Exclude Any Subdomains
site: [website.com] -inurl:www
Search for Specific Types Of Files
filetype:[extension]
List Search Results That Comply With One Of The Conditions
keyword/condition1 OR keyword/condition2
Add a “Fill in the Blank” Option
keyword1 * keyword2
Find Words near Each Other
keyword1 AROUND(X) keyword2
Search Between Specific Dates
daterange:[XXXXX-XXXXX]
Search Between Two Specific Years
[year1]..[year2]
Find Relevant Forum and Community Discussion Topics
Site:website.com intitle:keyword
How to find a relevant forum and community discussion topics (based on a keyword of your choice)
Finding them is easy with Google search commands.
Try these:
- Site:reddit.com intitle:keyword
- Site:quora.com intitle:keyword
- Site:niche-specific-forum.com intitle:keyword
Find PDF Downloads on .Gov Sites
[flu shot ext:pdf site:gov]
Find Non-HTTPS Indexed Pages
Site:[website.com] -inurl:https
Find Pages That Mention a Word in the Text
[Jeff Bezos -intitle:Jeff -intitle:Bezos]
Find An Organization’s Twitter Accounts
[site:twitter.com @nytimes -inurl:status -inurl:hashtag -inurl:lists]
Search Multiple Sites at the Same Time
pizza site:tiktok.com OR site:vimeo.com OR site:youtube.com
Find Any Duplicate Content On Your Site
“[duplicate content you want to check]”
Find Any Unwanted Files or Pages on Your Website
filetype:pdf seo
Find Niche Relevant Resource Page Link Opportunities
inurl:resources intitle:resources mountain bike
Find Sites to Pitch Your Feature Infographics To
[topic] intitle:infographic inurl:infographic
Find Social Profiles for Outreach
[name] site:twitter.com | site:facebook.com | site:linkedin.com
Find Sites That Mention Your Competitors (But Not You)
intext:[competitor] OR intext:[competitor] -site:website.com -site:website.com
Find Opportunities for Sponsored Posts
[topic] intext:”this is a sponsored post by”
Here are a few ways to find sponsored post opportunities using Google search operators:
- sponsored post results
- [topic] intext:”this is a sponsored post by”
- [topic] intext:”this post was sponsored by”
- [topic] intitle:”sponsored post”
- [topic] intitle:”sponsored post archives” inurl:”category/sponsored-post”
- “sponsored” AROUND(3) “post”
Find How Often Competing Sites Are Publishing New Content
site:[website} (+ some filtering in Google)
Find Sites That Are Linking to Your Competitors
link:[website.com] link:spotify.com -site:spotify.com
Google Search Operators - Basic, Advanced and Mail - Cheat Sheet
No. | Operator | What it does | Category |
| 1 | “ ” | Allows searching for a specific phrase – exact match search. Individual word prevents synonyms | Basic, Mail |
| 2 | OR | Boolean search function for OR searches as Google defaults to AND between words – must be all caps | Basic, Mail |
| 3 | | | Implements OR | Basic |
| 4 | () | Allows grouping of operators and helps dictate order | Basic, Mail |
| 5 | – | Excludes a word from results | Basic, Mail |
| 6 | * | Acts as a wildcard and will match any word or phrase | Basic |
| 7 | #..# | # represents a number in this instance. Use to find numbers in a series. | Basic |
| 8 | $ | Allows for search of USD | Basic |
| 9 | € | Allows for search of Euro | Basic |
| 10 | in | Allows searches for unit conversion (currency, unit or measure) | Basic |
| 11 | ~ | Prefix – Include synonyms (potentially defunct) | Basic |
| 12 | + | Prefix – Force exact match on single phrase | Basic, Mail |
| 13 | daterange: | Return results in a specified range (requires julian dates) | Advanced |
| 14 | link: | Find pages that link to the target domain | Advanced |
| 15 | inanchor: | Find pages linked to with the specified anchor text/ phrase. Data is heavily sampled. | Advanced |
| 16 | allinanchor: | Find pages with all individual terms after “inanchor:” in the inbound anchor text. | Advanced |
| 17 | inposttile: | Finds pages with keywords in their post titles (i.e. for researching blogs) | |
| 18 | define: | Pulls a card response from Google displaying the dictionary definition of the word or phrase | Advanced |
| 19 | cache: | Returns the most up to date cache of an indexed web page | Advanced |
| 20 | filetype: | Returns only files of a particular type associated with the keyword searched | Advanced |
| 21 | ext: | As above, based on extension | Advanced |
| 22 | site: | Limit results to those from one site | Advanced |
| 23 | related: | Find similar domains to the queried domain | Advanced |
| 24 | intitle: | Returns pages based on the searched query appearing in their title | Advanced |
| 25 | allintitle: | Similar to intitle: but only returns titles where all the words in the title match | Advanced |
| 26 | inurl: | Only returns results where the queried keyword(s) is present in the URL | Advanced |
| 27 | allinurl: | As above but only containing all of the specified words in the URL | Advanced |
| 28 | intext: | Finds pages where the keyword(s) are mentioned within the page content. | Advanced |
| 29 | allintext: | Similar to “intext,” but only results containing all of the specified words somewhere on the page will be returned. | Advanced |
| 30 | AROUND(X) | This is sandwiched between two words and the X declares how many words they must be mentioned between. I.e. if it’s (4) then the two keywords must be mentioned within 4 words of each other. | Advanced |
| 31 | weather: | Brings up the featured snipped for weather for that location | Advanced |
| 32 | stocks: | Returns stock information for the specified ticker | Advanced |
| 33 | map: | Force google map results for a particular query | Advanced |
| 34 | movie: | Find information for the specified movie (particularly useful when that movie has an ambiguous name). If the movie is still in theatres it’ll also return screen times | Advanced |
| 35 | source: | Use in google news, returns results from the specified source | Advanced |
| 36 | _ | Acts as wildcard for autocomplete | Advanced |
| 37 | blogurl: | Find blog URLs under a specific domain. This was used in Google blog search, but I’ve found it does return some results in regular search. | Advanced |
| 38 | loc: | Returns results for a specific location | Advanced |
| 39 | location: | As above but with Google news | Advanced |
| 40 | info: | Returns information rlated to a domain (pages with dmain text, similar on-site pages, cache etc) | Advanced |
| 41 | near | Part of the google maps lazy searches e.g. book shops near work | Maps |
| 42 | Business type | E.g. cafe, restaurant, bar etc will return a selection of appropriate businesses in the are | Maps |
| 43 | Petrol/Charging Station | EV near me or perol station near me returns | Maps |
| 44 | type: | Allows you to search drive by file type | Drive |
| 45 | owner: | Allows you to search drive by owner of file or folder | Drive |
| 46 | after: | Allows you to search drive or mail for files modified or mail sent/received anytime after a set date | Drive, Mail |
| 47 | before: | Allows you to search drive or mail for files modified or mail sent/received before a certain date | Drive, Mail |
| 48 | to: | Allows you to search drive for files shared with a specific person | Drive |
| 49 | title: | Searches drive for files with the keyword in their title alone | Drive |
| 50 | source:domain | Allows you to search for files or folders shared with everyone in your business | Drive |
| 51 | is:trashed | Searches for the item in the Drive bin | Drive |
| 52 | is:starred | Searches only items that have been starred in drive | Drive, Mail |
| 53 | from: | Specify the sender in google mail | |
| 54 | to: | Specify the recipient in google mail | |
| 55 | cc: | Search by a recipient that was copied into an email | |
| 56 | bcc: | Search by a recipient that was blind copied into an email | |
| 57 | subject: | Search by keywords featured in the subject line | |
| 58 | {} | Use for OR in mail instead of the OR function | |
| 59 | AROUND | Similar to the normal google search function, allows you to search for keywords near each other. | |
| 60 | label: | Search for messages that have a certain label | |
| 61 | has:attachment | Search for messages that have an item attached | |
| 62 | has:drive | Search for messages with a google drive attached | |
| 63 | has:document | Search for messages with a google doc attached | |
| 66 | has:youtube | Search for a message containing a youtube video | |
| 67 | list: | Search for all messages from a particular mailing list | |
| 68 | filename: | Search for messages with a particular type of file attached, or the exact name of a file | |
| 69 | in:anywhere | Includes all folders in your search, including spam and bin | |
| 70 | is:important | Search for messages that have been marked as important | |
| 71 | label:important | Same as is:important | |
| 72 | is:snoozed | Searches for messages that have been snoozed | |
| 73 | is:unread | Searches for unread messages | |
| 74 | is:read | searches for read messages only | |
| 75 | has:yellow-star | Searches for messages with colored star icon | |
| 76 | has:blue-info | Searches for messages with colored icon | |
| 77 | older: | Search for messages older than a certain date | |
| 78 | newer: | Search for messages newer than a certain date | |
| 79 | is:chat | Searches for messagse from chat | |
| 80 | deliveredto: | Search by email address for delivered messages | |
| 81 | category: | Searches by messages based on category. Follow the colon with the categoy name, i.e. category:primary | |
| 82 | size: | Messages larger than a certain size in bytes | |
| 83 | larger: | Messages larger than a certain size in bytes | |
| 84 | smaller: | Messages smaller than a certain size in bytes | |
| 85 | has:userlabels | Search for messages that have custom user labels | |
| 86 | Search for messages that have no custom user labels |
Search Service & Search Operators
Search Service | Search Operators |
| Web Search | allinanchor:, allintext:, allintitle:, allinurl:, cache:, define:, filetype:, id:, inanchor:, info:, intext:, intitle:, inurl:, link:, related:, site: |
| Image Search | allintitle:, allinurl:, filetype:, inurl:, intitle:, site: |
| Groups | allintext:, allintitle:, author:, group:, insubject:, intext:, intitle: |
| Directory | allintext:, allintitle:, allinurl:, ext:, filetype:, intext:, intitle:, inurl: |
| News | allintext:, allintitle:, allinurl:, intext:, intitle:, inurl:, location:, source: |
| Product Search | allintext:, allintitle: |
Google Search Operators Cheat Sheet
Using operators in Google Search can give you incredible power (think superhero or ninja!) over your search results. Check out this cheat sheet.
Operators | What it does | Example |
| Quotes ( “ “ ) | Use quotes to locate the exact words in the exact order. Great for song lyrics and literature | [ “i want to hold your hand” ] |
| Exclude a word ( – ) | Use the minus sign (-) to eliminate words from a search. | [ eagles -philidelphia ] Make sure there is NO SPACE after the minus sign. |
| Search within a site or domain ( .gov) | Restricts a search to a specific domain (.gov, .org, etc.) | [ consumer help site:gov ] |
| Search within a specific site (site:) | Restricts a search to a specific site (the example is the national zoo). | [ pandas site:nationalzoo.si.edu ] |
| Fill in the blank ( * ) | It’s a ‘fill in the blank’ sometimes know as a ‘wild card’. Great tool to find an unknown! | [ “each year * people die from aids “ ] |
| Search either word: OR | To find pages that have either word in your search. The OR must be capitalized! | [ olympics location 2014 OR 2018 ] (finds the location for either 2014 or 2018) |
| Search for a number range (..) | Works for money, prices, and measures Use JUST TWO periods and NO SPACES. | [ computers $500..$800 ] [ford mustangs 1960..1969] |
| Search by File type ( filetype:) | Locates specific file types for your search. Try it with pdf, jpg, ppt, etc. | [ form 1040 filetype:pdf ] [ common core filetype:ppt] |
| Search within the text ( intext:) | Locates a specific word or phrase in the body of the result | [help site:facebook.com intext:hack] |