Google's Advanced Search Operators
Paul GI Apis
[EN]
This list is a living one, meaning operators are dynamically added, modified, and removed. Using these operators helps you find more precisely what you need. If you have any questions, please check with Google or ask me. Good luck finding it!
List of advanced search operators for the Google search engine
| Nr. | Operator | Use | Examples |
| 1 | * (Asterisk) | The asterisk replaces a word or any number of characters in the query; use the asterisk (*) when you are unsafe on the search text. | Find quotes that begin with "Life is like a": Life is like a * |
| 2 | " (Quotes) | Search exactly, rigorously for a name or phrase, enclosing in quotes the search string that must be found exactly. | Find pages that talk about the book One Hundred Years of Solitude: " One Hundred Years of Solitude " |
| 3 | - (hyphens) | Use the hyphen before a word, phrase, or site to exclude it from search results | Omit Wikipedia pages from search results: -site: wikipedia.org . Narrow results for REM band, not rapid eye movement: REM-sleep |
| 4 | .. (Two periods) | Separate numbers with two periods without spaces to look up numbers in this range | Find phones that cost between $ 200 and $ 400: Android phone $ 200 .. $ 400 . Find computerized landmarks that occurred between 1950 and 2000: "computerized landmarks" 1950..2000 |
| 5 | allintitle: | Use allintext: [search phrase] to find pages with all those words in the page title | Shows pages that have both "Apple" and "notebook" in the title: allintitle: Apple Notebook |
| 6 | allintext: | Use allintext: [search phrase] to find pages with all those words in the body of the page | Show pages that mention Roth, IRA and investment in the body: allintext: Roth IRA investments |
| 7 | Allinurl: | Use allinurl: [search phrase] to find pages with all those words in the URL | Show pages that have both "Microsoft" and "Surface" in the URL: allinurl: Microsoft Surface |
| 8 | AROUND (n) | Add AROUND (n) between two search terms to find the pages where these terms are written on the page in close proximity. The number you choose instead of n sets the maximum distance between the terms. This is useful for finding relationships between two search terms. | Find pages that mention Facebook and Microsoft in the same sentence or paragraph: Facebook AROUND (7) Microsoft |
| 9 | website: | Use the site: [URL] to limit search results to a specific website | Find pages on Zapier that mention Trello: site: zapier.com trello |
| 10 | related to: | Use related: [URL] to find sites similar to a specific website | Find websites similar to Zapier: linked: zapier.com |
| 11 | file type: | Use filetype: [suffix] to limit results to a specific file format, such as PDF or DOC. | Find keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Office that are shared as PDF: filetype: pdf keyboard shortcuts |
| 12 | Intitle: | Use intitle: [search phrase] to search for pages that have at least one of your words. search from the title | Show pages that have "Apple" or "notebook" or both in the title: intitle: Apple notebook |
| 13 | in the text: | Use intext: [search phrase] to search for pages that have at least one of your words. search in the body of the page | Display pages that mention Roth, IRA and/or investment in the body: intext: Roth IRA investments |
| 14 | inurl: | Use inurl: [search phrase] to search for pages that have at least one of your words. search in url | Display pages that mention Roth, IRA and/or investment in the body: intext: Roth IRA investments |
| 15 | OR | Perform two search questions at the same time by separating the search terms with the OR. Here you will find pages that have one of several words. | Look for pages that refer to "Google Drive", "Dropbox" or "OneDrive": "Google Drive" OR Dropbox OR OneDrive |
| 16 | @socialmedia | use the “@” symbol in front of your keyword. It can be used to find a brand’s social media handles as well as businesses with a specific social media platform. | Find a ''Pizza Hut" 's official twitter account: pizzahut @twitter |
| 17 | related: | use “related:” to find similar domains to the target URL you’ve included in the search bar. | Find a competitor to "Lush": related:lush.com |
| 18 | source: | use ''source:'' to view news content from a specified source in Google News. Using the “source:” command will display all of the keyword-related web pages from the source listed in the search. | Find articles related to ''Facebook'' published by ''The washington monthly" : facebook source:washingtonmonthly |
| 19 | blogurl: | use the “blogurl:” operator to find the blog of a particular domain | Find "HP" blog : blogurl:hp.com |
| 20 | loc:place | use "loc:" to narrow your search to a specific location, to target a particular brand or business in one geographic area. | Find "PR agencies" in "Dallas": pr agency loc:dallas |
| 21 | $/€ | use "$" or "€" to search for products by their prices. At present, $ and € are the only currency symbols that display prices. Other common currencies like GBP (£), JPY (¥) provide inconsistent results. | Find "Handbags" that cost "67.99$" : Handbags $67.99 |
| 22 | define: | use "define:" to access Google’s built-in dictionary, which Oxford Languages provide. | |
| 23 | weather: | Use "weather:" to check the weather in any location. The search result is a weather-featured snippet and below are other reliable weather websites. | Verify the weather in "Marrakech" : weather:marrakech |
| 24 | map: | use "map:" to view map results directly from Google’s SERPs without clicking on the Maps tab in search results | Find Marrakech map: map:marrakech |
| 25 | movie: | use "movie:" to find out about a movie such as trailers, film summaries, reviews, showtimes.. | Find information about the movie ''Spider-man'' : movie:spider-man |
| 26 | stocks: | use "stocks:" to find the stock information of a certain ticker | Find information about "amazon" stocks : stocks:amazon |
| 27 | near | use "near" to find a business or place that are located near your IP adress or location | Find a supermarket near workplace : supermarkets near work |
| 28 | site:domainname.com intitle:”suspected duplicate title” | use to finding duplicate content | Find duplicate content for iphone 12 in ''walmart'' : site:walmart.com intitle:''iphone12'' |
| 29 | site:*.domainname.com -www | use "site:*.yourdomainname.com -www" to find and identify subdomains | Find subdomains for "walmart.com" : site:*.walmart.com -www |
| 30 | site:yourdomainname.com filetype:x |
Use "site:yourdomainname.com filetype:x" to find unused or old files that have been forgotten a website over the years. You can also replace the “filetype:” command with the “ext:” File types examples : Adobe Flash (.swf) Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf) Google Earth (.kml, .kmz) 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) Text (.txt) [list continues] |
Find walmart pdf files: site: walmart.com filetype:pdf Find walmart pdf or ppt files: site:walmart.com (filetype:pdf OR filetype:ppt) |
| 31 | cache: | use "cache:" to find the latest cached version of an indexed web page | find the latest cached version of Amazon's website: cache:amazon.com |
| 32 | (word 1 OR word 2) word 3 | use to group terms you want to prioritize or search against another term, when using it can open up wider searches and give you better results. | (football OR league) premier |
| 33 | | | use "|" instead of the Google search operator OR. | find spiderman or batman: spiderman | batman |
| 34 | link: | "link:" was used to return sites that were linking to this site. This operator used to be very helpful when doing backlink research. | Find backlink for amazon: link:amazon.com |
| 35 | ~ | "~" was used to include synonyms of your search query, not relevant anymore since Goodle includes synonyms by default. | Find "orange" and iclude synonyms: ~orange |
| 36 | + | "+" was used to force exact match on single phrase searches but was deprecated when Google+ was launched | Find jobs at mercedes Jobs+mercedes |
| 37 | datarange: | use "datarange:" to return searches within a certain period. The time period had to be defined by the Julian date format. | Find research in this daterange: daterange:11117–12169 |
| 38 | inanchor: | use "inanchor:" to return all websites using the specified word or phrase in an anchor text. | Find all websites using the phrase "apple iphone" :inanchor: apple iphone |
| 39 | allinanchor: | use "allinanchor:" the same way "inanchor:" is used but all defined words are going to be included | Find all websites using the phrase "apple iphone" allinanchor:apple iphone |
| 40 | inpostauthor: and allinpostauthor: | "inpostauthor:" and "allinpostauthor" were used to find posts written by the specified author. It only worked with Google Blog Search | Find posts or books written by Stephen King: inpostauthor:"stephen king" |
| 41 | inposttitle: | "inposttitle" was used for the same purpose as "intitle" however it was only relevant to Google Blog Search | Find pages including "iphone12" in the title: inposttitle:iphone12 |
| 42 | info: and id: | "info:" and "id:" was used to find information about a page, like similar pages, it was deprecated in 2017 | Find information about Amazon.com: info:amazon.com |
| 43 | phonebook: | use "phonebook:" to find a person's phone number | Find Sarah hudson's phone number: phonebook:sarah hudson |
| 44 | # | "#" was used to search and find hashtags, it was deprecated | Find all pages where the hashtag Christmas was used: #christmas |
| 45 | imagesize:widthxheight | use "imagesize:widthxheight" right after the word you are looking for to find images of the dimension of your choice | find images with the size 225x160: imagesize:225x160 |
| 46 | ? | use "?" to do a single-character wildcard search | find pages where the word starts with "si" and an unknown third character: si? , results will include the words sit, sir, sip... |
| 47 | w/#: | use "w/#" to find two single terms within a certain number of words of each other in a document. Cannot be used with more than two terms or with phrases | results that contain the terms tacos and delivery within 10 words of each other: tacos w/ 10 delivery |
| 48 | w/s: | Use "w/s" or "/s" between single terms to find results that contain the terms within approximately the same sentence. Cannot be used with more than two terms or with phrases | Find results with tacos and delivery in the same sentence: tacos w/s delivery |
| 49 | w/p: | Use "w/p" or "/p" between single terms to find results that contain the terms within approximately the same paragraph. The syntax defines a paragraph as within 75 words. Cannot be used with more than two terms or with phrases | Find results with tacos and delivery in the same paragraph: tacos w/p delivery |
| 50 | w/seg | Use "w/seg" or "/seg" between single terms to find results that contain the terms within approximately the same segment. The syntax defines a segment as within 100 words. Cannot be used with more than two terms or with phrases | Find results with tacos and delivery in the same segment: tacos w/seg delivery |
| 51 | ^ | Use "^" In order to boost a single or phrase term. By default, the boost factor is 1. The higher the boost factor, the more relevant the boosted term. Although the boost factor must be positive, it can be less than 1 | study^group, in this case the term "study" is more relevant than "group". Group ^4 study, in this case group is 4 times more relevant than study |
| 52 | in / to | Use "in/to" to convert into another unit directly in the search box | Convert 25euro to dollar: 10EURO in DOLLAR or 10EURO to DOLLAR |
| 53 | [term] site:[TLD] | use "[term] site:[TLD]" if you are doing research and want a specific TLD | Find results with ".edu" domains: marketing site:edu |
| 54 | [term] intitle:infographic inurl:infographic | use "[term] intitle:infographic inurl:infographic" to find infographics related to a certain subject | Find infographics related to "4P": 4Pintitle:infographic inurl:infographic |
| 55 | color code | use "color code" to find a color and get the color picker google option | find color : #f0f0f5 |
| 56 | time in [location] | use "time in [location]" to see what time it is in another city, country or any location right now | Find time in "Casablanca": time in Casablanca |
| 57 | [word] in [language] | use "[word] in [language]" to search for the translation of a word in another language | Find the french word for "Bee" : Bee in french |
| 58 | sunrise or sunset in [location] | use 'sunrise or sunset in [location]" to search the time of sunset or sunrise in a certain location | Find the time of sunset in Brasov: sunset in Brasov |
| 59 | set a timer for [duration] | Use "set a timer for [duration]" to send | Set a timer for 3 minutes |
| 60 | my ip | use "my ip" to find your public ip address | Find my ip address: my ip |
| 61 | [holiday] [year] | use "[holiday] [year]" to find the exact date of an upcoming or already passed holiday | Find the date of easter 2023: Easter 2023 |
| 62 | [flight number] | use "[flight number]" to find and get an update of the status of your flight using your flight number | Find flight number DL34928: dl 34928 |
Thanks, Hajar Ouardi, for your help!
