GOOGLE SEARCH OPERATOR STRING

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Google Search Operators: The Complete List (42 Advanced Operators)

For anyone that’s been doing SEO for a while, Google advanced search operators—i.e., special commands that make regular ol’ searches seem laughably basic in comparison—are nothing new.

Here’s a Google search operator you may be familiar with.

the “site:” operator restricts results to only those from a specified site.

It’s easy to remember most search operators. They’re short commands that stick in the mind.
But knowing how to use them effectively is an altogether different story.
Most SEOs know the basics, but few have truly mastered them.
In this post, I’ll share 15 actionable tips to help you master search operators for SEO, which are:

Find indexation errors

Find non‐secure pages (non‐https)

Find duplicate content issues

Find unwanted files and pages on your site

Find guest post opportunities

Find resource page opportunities

Find sites that feature infographics… so you can pitch YOURS

Find more link prospects… AND check how relevant they are

Find social profiles for outreach prospects

Find internal linking opportunities

Find PR opportunities by finding competitor mentions

Find sponsored post opportunities

Find Q+A threads related to your content

Find how often your competitors are publishing new content

Find sites linking to competitors

But first, here’s a complete list of all Google search operators and their functionality.

Google Search Operators: The Complete List

Did you know that Google is constantly killing useful operators?
That’s why most existing lists of Google search operators are outdated and inaccurate.
For this post, I personally tested EVERYsearch operator I could find.
Here is a complete list of all working, non‐working, and “hit and miss” Google advanced search operators as of 2018.

“search term”

Force an exact‐match search. Use this to refine results for ambiguous searches, or to exclude synonyms when searching for single words.
Example: “steve jobs”

Search for X or Y. This will return results related to X or Y, or both. Note: The pipe (|) operator can also be used in place of “OR.”
Examples: jobs OR gates / jobs | gates

AND

Search for X and Y. This will return only results related to both X and Y. Note: It doesn’t really make much difference for regular searches, as Google defaults to “AND” anyway. But it’s very useful when paired with other operators.
Example: jobs AND gates

Exclude a term or phrase. In our example, any pages returned will be related to jobs but not Apple (the company).
Example: jobs -apple

Acts as a wildcard and will match any word or phrase.
Example: steve * apple

( )

Group multiple terms or search operators to control how the search is executed.
Example: (ipad OR iphone) apple

Search for prices. Also works for Euro (€), but not GBP (£) 
Example: ipad $329

define:

A dictionary built into Google, basically. This will display the meaning of a word in a card‐like result in the SERPs.
Example: define:entrepreneur

cache:

Returns the most recent cached version of a web page (providing the page is indexed, of course).
Example: cache:apple.com

filetype:

Restrict results to those of a certain filetype. E.g., PDF, DOCX, TXT, PPT, etc. Note: The “ext:” operator can also be used—the results are identical.
Example: apple filetype:pdf / apple ext:pdf

site:

Limit results to those from a specific website.
Example: site:apple.com

related:

Find sites related to a given domain.
Example: related:apple.com

intitle:

Find pages with a certain word (or words) in the title. In our example, any results containing the word “apple” in the title tag will be returned.
Example: intitle:apple

allintitle:

Similar to “intitle,” but only results containing all of the specified words in the title tag will be returned.
Example: allintitle:apple iphone

inurl:

Find pages with a certain word (or words) in the URL. For this example, any results containing the word “apple” in the URL will be returned.
Example: inurl:apple

allinurl:

Similar to “inurl,” but only results containing all of the specified words in the URL will be returned.
Example: allinurl:apple iphone

intext:

Find pages containing a certain word (or words) somewhere in the content. For this example, any results containing the word “apple” in the page content will be returned.
Example: intext:apple

allintext:

Similar to “intext,” but only results containing all of the specified words somewhere on the page will be returned.
Example: allintext:apple iphone

AROUND(X)

Proximity search. Find pages containing two words or phrases within X words of each other. For this example, the words “apple” and “iphone” must be present in the content and no further than four words apart.
Example: apple AROUND(4) iphone

weather:

Find the weather for a specific location. This is displayed in a weather snippet, but it also returns results from other “weather” websites.
Example: weather:san francisco

stocks:

See stock information (i.e., price, etc.) for a specific ticker.
Example: stocks:aapl

map:

Force Google to show map results for a locational search.
Example: map:silicon valley

movie:

Find information about a specific movie. Also finds movie showtimes if the movie is currently showing near you.
Example: movie:steve jobs

Convert one unit to another. Works with currencies, weights, temperatures, etc.
Example: $329 in GBP

source:

Find news results from a certain source in Google News.
Example: apple source:the_verge

Not exactly a search operator, but acts as a wildcard for Google Autocomplete.
Example: apple CEO _ jobs

Here are the ones that are hit and miss, according to my testing:

#..#

Search for a range of numbers. In the example below, searches related to “WWDC videos” are returned for the years 2010–2014, but not for 2015 and beyond.
Example: wwdc video 2010..2014

inanchor:

Find pages that are being linked to with specific anchor text. For this example, any results with inbound links containing either “apple” or “iphone” in the anchor text will be returned.
Example: inanchor:apple iphone

allinanchor:

Similar to “inanchor,” but only results containing all of the specified words in the inbound anchor text will be returned.
Example: allinanchor:apple iphone

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.
Example: blogurl:microsoft.com

SIDENOTE.

Google blog search discontinued in 2011

loc:placename

Find results from a given area.
Example: loc:”san francisco” apple

SIDENOTE.

Not officially deprecated, but results are inconsistent.

location:

Find news from a certain location in Google News.
Example: loc:”san francisco” apple

SIDENOTE.

Not officially deprecated, but results are inconsistent.

Here are the Google search operators that have been discontinued and no longer work. 

Force an exact‐match search on a single word or phrase.
Example: jobs +apple

SIDENOTE.

You can do the same thing by using double quotes around your search.

Include synonyms. Doesn’t work, because Google now includes synonyms by default. (Hint: Use double quotes to exclude synonyms.)
Example: ~apple

inpostauthor:

Find blog posts written by a specific author. This only worked in Google Blog search, not regular Google search.
Example: inpostauthor:”steve jobs”

SIDENOTE.

Google blog search was discontinued in 2011.

allinpostauthor:

Similar to “inpostauthor,” but removes the need for quotes (if you want to search for a specific author, including surname.)
Example: allinpostauthor:steve jobs

inposttitle:

Find blog posts with specific words in the title. No longer works, as this operator was unique to the discontinued Google blog search.
Example: intitle:apple iphone

link:

Find pages linking to a specific domain or URL. Google killed this operator in 2017, but it does still show some results—they likely aren’t particularly accurate though. (Deprecated in 2017)
Example: link:apple.com

info:

Find information about a specific page, including the most recent cache, similar pages, etc. (Deprecated in 2017). Note: The id: operator can also be used—the results are identical.

SIDENOTE.

Although the original functionality of this operator is deprecated, it is still useful for finding the canonical, indexed version of a URL. Thanks to @glenngabe for pointing this one one!

Example: info:apple.com / id:apple.com

daterange:

Find results from a certain date range. Uses the Julian date format, for some reason.
Example: daterange:11278–13278

SIDENOTE.

Not officially deprecated, but doesn’t seem to work.

phonebook:

Find someone’s phone number. (Deprecated in 2010)
Example: phonebook:tim cook

Searches #hashtags. Introduced for Google+; now deprecated.
Example: #apple

15 Actionable Ways to Use Google Search Operators

Now let’s tackle a few ways to put these operators into action.
My aim here is to show that you can achieve almost anything with Google advanced operators if you know how to use and combine them efficiently.
So don’t be afraid to play around and deviate from the examples below. You might just discover something new.

BORED OF READING?

Check out 9 actionable Google search operator tips in Sam Oh’s video.

Let’s go!

1. Find indexation errors

Google indexation errors exist for most sites.
It could be that a page that should be indexed, isn’t. Or vice‐versa.
Let’s use the site: operator to see how many pages Google has indexed for ahrefs.com.

~1,040.

SIDENOTE.

Google only gives a rough approximation when using this operator. For the full picture, check Google Search Console.

But how many of these pages are blog posts?
Let’s find out.

~249. That’s roughly ¼.
I know Ahrefs blog inside out, so I know this is higher than the number of posts we have.
Let’s investigate further.

OK, so it seems that a few odd pages are being indexed.
(This page isn’t even live—it’s a 404)
Such pages should be removed from the SERPs by noindexing them.
Let’s also narrow the search to subdomains and see what we find.

SIDENOTE.

Here, we’re using the wildcard (*) operator to find all subdomains belonging to the domain, combined with the exclusion operator (-) to exclude regular www results.

~731 results.
Here’s a page residing on a subdomain that definitely shouldn’t be indexed. It gives a 404 error for a start.

Here are a few other ways to uncover indexation errors with Google operators:

site:yourblog.com/category — find WordPress blog category pages;

site:yourblog.com inurl:tag — find WordPress “tag” pages.

2. Find non‐secure pages (non‐https)

HTTPs is a must these days, especially for ecommerce sites.
But did you know that you can find unsecure pages with the site: operator?
Let’s try it for asos.com.

Oh my, ~2.47M unsecure pages.
It looks like ASAS don’t currently use SSL—unbelievable for such a large site.

SIDENOTE.

Don’t worry, Asos customers—their checkout pages are secure 

But here’s another crazy thing:
ASOS is accessible at both the https and http versions.

And we learned all that from a simple site: search!

SIDENOTE.

I’ve noticed that sometimes, when using this tactic, pages will be indexed without the https. But when you click‐through, you will be directed to the https version. So don’t assume that your pages are unsecure just because they appear as such in Google’s index. Always click a few of them to double‐check.