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Advaned Google search

Google has its own "language" to communicate with people. It consists of a handful of search operators, Boolean commands and a few other conventions that translate complex queries into the form that Google can process.

You can build advanced queries from Advaned Search pages by filling in the form, or from standard search boxes by using search operators and other means. The two methods mostly duplicate each other; their differences are duly mentioned.

This section covers advanced search from the main Search box. None of the described search features works in all Google databases. Some, like intitle: or inurl:, are almost universal, others, like store:, are limited to one database.

When does it make sense to use advanced search? In most cases, using a few keywords will do the job. But there are other cases, when too many results, inaccurate keywords, or other search impediments hide the answers from view. And it's only getting more elusive. How many billions of webpages has Google indexed?

Then you need finer search tools than just good old keywords alone.

  three stars indicate search operators every searcher must know.
  two stars indicate second most important search operators.
Search operators with no stars next to them are used mostly by professional searchers.

To explore details of a results page, click here.
The results list will contain links to web pages, each of which has the phrase in any of its parts.
The results list will contain links to web pages, none of which has the excluded word in any of its parts.
The results list will contain links to web pages, each of which has the forced word in any of its parts.
The results list will contain links to web pages having the word 'jaguar' combined with the word '~car' or any of its synonyms: 'auto', 'vehicle', etc.
The results list will contain links to the web pages having the word 'pie' in their title, and the word 'sky' anywhere in the page.
The results list will contain links to web pages having all of the query words in the title.
The results list will contain links to web pages with 'fraser' always in the body text, and 'gold', 'rush', and 'fraser' anywhere in the page.
The results list will contain links to web pages always having 'fraser', 'gold', and 'rush' in the body text. The keywords may also occur in other parts of the web page.
The results list will contain links to web pages with the word 'contact' in their url, and the word 'adobe' anywhere in the web page.
The results list will contain links to web pages with the words 'contact' and 'adobe' in their url.
The results list will contain links to web pages from the specified website or domain. The pages must have the keyword(s) of the query.
The results list will contain links to documents of the specified format, with keyword(s) in the documents.
The results list will contain links to web pages with your keyword(s) and associated numbers within the specified range.
The results list will contain links to web pages with your keyword(s), that were recorded by Google within the specified period.
The results list will contain links to web pages that are linked to the website or webpage specified by the link: operator.
The results list will contain links to web pages that are in some way similar to the specified page.
The results page will contain a list of links to several types of information about the specified page, see Comment.

You can enter one or several words for a very simple search.

Google returns a list of web pages containing the word(s) anywhere in each page.

What's in double quotation marks " " is a "phrase". Google searches for documents with an exact phrase.

Using phrases is the most practical way to target your searches.

Visualize phrases that you expect to appear in texts you are looking for.

If you can come up with two or three phrases, you are almost certain to find what you need.

In this example the '-' operator is used in an attempt to focus on animals and exclude jaguars that are cars.

It should be reminded, however, that Google excludes only pages with the word 'car' in them. not the concept of the car.

The '+' operator forces Google to search for the word.

By default, Google searches for all the words in the query, except stop words. But sometimes you can hardly find one or more of your keywords in a result. Maybe it's because the copy of the web page in the Google database is not current.

Anyway, even overuse of the plus sign doesn't hurt the quality of results.

If you want to search for synonyms, place the tilde sign '~' immediately in front of the keyword.

You can use a keyword or a phrase with the intitle: operator.

Make sure there is no space between the intitle: operator and the keyword.

Details about the title of the web page are in Web search basics > Web pages

All the keywords will be found in the titles of web pages.

It is the same as adding the intitle: operator to each keyword.

The intext: operator searches only the body text of web pages, ignoring links, URL's, and titles.

It may be used to cut off zillions of web pages with your keyword not in the text but in URL, etc.

Details about the body text of the web page are in Web search basics > Web pages

The allintext: operator gives all sorts of crazy results when it is mixed with other operators. It may work well, ex. with the filetype: operator, but you should always expect unexpected.

Although this advanced operator might seem too generic to be of any real use, it is useful occasionally.

The inurl: operator searches only the URL of web pages. It may be very useful if you know how to read URL's.

This example tries to find contact information for Adobe Systems Inc. on the assumption that companies often use contact.html for that kind of information.

Details about the URL of the web page are in Web search basics > URL's

The allinurl: operator searches the URL of web pages for all keywords in the query. In this example both 'contact' and 'adobe' must be present in the URL.

Of course, the same keywords may happen to occur in other parts of the web page.

The site: operator can be used with domain names from the top level to the website level.

Examples are 'site:.edu', 'site:ca', 'site:store.apple.com', 'site:www.apple.com', 'site:apple.com'.

Details about the structure of domain names are in Web search basics > URL's

The site: operator cannot be used alone, the other part of a query being a keyword, phrase, etc.

It can be easily combined with other search operators, the minus sign, etc.

The filetype: operator searches specified files for keywords.
It mixes well with other operators.

Google searches 13 file types:

  • Adobe Portable Document Format (pdf)
  • Adobe PostScript (ps)
  • Lotus 1-2-3 (wk1, wk2, wk3, wk4, wk5, wki, wks, wku)
  • Lotus WordPro (lwp)
  • MacWrite (mw)
  • MS Excel (xls)
  • MS PowerPoint (ppt)
  • MS Word (doc)
  • MS Works (wks, wps, wdb)
  • MS Write (wri)
  • Rich Text Format (rtf)
  • Shockwave Flash (swf)
  • Text (ans, txt)

The numrange: operator, usually represented by two periods between numbers, searches for your keyword(s) and all numbers within the specified range.

Specify the unit of measurement or some other indicator of what the number range represents.

The daterange: operator lets you search for pages that Google indexed during a specific time frame. It has nothing to do with the date a page was created.

The operator is more powerful than a similar feature in the Advaned Search page. It lets you specify a single day for which you'd like results, or a date before or after which you'd like results.

The dates must be in the Julian date form. Run a Google search for "julian date" to get a current list of converters.

The link: operator allows you to find pages that link to other pages. Note that link: doesn't show all backlinks to the specified url. You can use Google's webmaster tools to view a much larger sample of links to the same URL.

It can be extended to include not only basic URL's but complete URL's that include directory names, filenames, parameters, and the like. Ex., link:aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.html

The related: operator finds web pages or websites similar in content.

The related: operator cannot be used with other operators or search terms.

The info: operator provides you with a summary of the details about a URL including links to that page's cache, similar pages, linked pages, and pages containing the words in your search.

  • Show Google's cache of www.yoursite.com
  • Find web pages that are similar to www.yoursite.com
  • Find web pages that link to www.yoursite.com
  • Find web pages from the site www.yoursite.com
  • Find web pages that contain the term "www.yoursite.com"

The info: operator cannot be used with other operators or search terms.

Handling repetitive searches

If you do a lot of searching, you may have to enter the same searches over and over, trying to find the latest search results.

It can be simplified or automated in several ways, depending on the nature of search.

  • Bookmarks. Once you've performed a search, you can bookmark the search results page in your web browser. Every time you use this bookmark, you'll display an updated search results page.
  • Alerts. You can create a query and save it with Google. Every time when new information on your query appears in Google databases, Google will send you an email about it. It's called an alert. You can configure your alerts to be sent once a day, a week, or as it happens. One Google Alerts screen lets you create alerts for Web, News, Blogs, Groups, or Comprehensive.
  • Feeds. Google News Feeds are regular summaries of news content with links to full versions. You must use a feed reader to read feeds. News feeds are not searches and that's why they are only mentioned here. You can find more details here (opens in a new window).

Google lets you receive three types of news feeds:

  • Section feeds with headlines from a Google News section. Go to a section page, and then click the RSS or Atom link in the left panel.
  • Search results feeds with headlines that match a search query. Conduct your search, and then click the RSS or Atom link in the left panel.
  • Customized news feeds with all the headlines from your personalized version of Google News. Click the Personalized News link at the top of the main Google News page, and then click the RSS or Atom link in the left panel.

Searching the Web from the main Search box

The Google Web Search box is located on Google's home page:

and it is repeated on each results page:

The Search box accepts keywords and phrases, as well as a number of advanced search operators and combinations of them.

The range of search tools in Google's kit is growing along with the amount of information on the Internet. What previously was findable with a couple of keywords, now may require a more targeted query.

OR operator

The word OR in uppercase letters, or its equivalent the pipe symbol '|', instructs Google to return pages with any one or more keywords in a query. For example:

This search finds web pages that must have 'google' and either 'manual' or 'user guide', or both of them. The keywords may be in any part of the web pages.

Note that OR acts on search terms on either side of it.

General techniques

Search techniques grouped under this heading are almost universal in Google. You can use them in Google Web search, Image, search, etc.

The Simplest search is here for illustration purposes. In fact, it's not as simple as it might appear - Google's famous algorithms work behind the scenes and try to give you what you need. Advaned operators, such as the plus sign, let you change the workings of the default algorithms.

Click the Comment link every time you want more details on the operator.

Wildcard

Google uses only one wildcard '*'. It stands for one or several whole words.

The wildcard can be used in many creative ways.

Uses of wildcards
  • Locating a quote to ascertain a word or two in it:
  • Filling in the blanks in a query that would answer your question:

    Note that you can use several wildcards. Also note that the last wildcard in the example affects search results for whatever reason.

Field search

Fields are standard parts of the web page. As explained in Web search basics, title, body text and URL are the main components of the web page in terms of search. Links on the page are not a structural component, but Google singles them out along with other fields.

Location of keywords in different fields gives additional meaning to them which is relevant for search purposes. For instance, words in the title are more important in determining the topic of the whole page.

Also, placing keywords in more meaningful locations allows you to create queries based on more precise models, see Search basics> Queries that find.

Limit search to

These operators are additions to keywords, they are not used on their own. The site: operator is an exception, but using it independently makes sense only in a few special cases.

Find

These operators do not mix with keywords or other search terms.

The most common uses of the minus sign '-' :

  • When you've done a search, and there are too many results with a wrong keyword, you can add that keyword with a minus sign to your search query and repeat search to remove such pages from the results list.

The most common uses of the site: operator:

  • searching websites that don't have a search feature

The most common uses of the link: operator:

  • finding out what sites link to your website or web page
  • assessing popularity of websites