Google for dummies: 46 search operators guaranteed to give you the search results that you want!
By: Chris Bächle
Tags: Search, Online Marketing, Internet, Search Engine Optimizati, Google

Google for dummies: 46 search operators guaranteed to give you the search results that you want! Chris Bächle Apr 6·8 min read

We all know it, we enter our search terms into the search engine, but don’t get what we were really looking for.

The commands I’m going to present you will show you a whole new world of browsing.

Table of Contents:

1. What are Google search operators ?

Google search operators are commands that ask the search engine to return precise search results based on that command.

There are two types of search operators:

Basic search operators

Advanced Google search operators

Basic search operators:

Basic search operators are characters around the search term, these can be e.g.: +, -, # etc.

Advanced Google search operators:

The advanced Google search operators, help you narrow down targeted results to a specific time or display general information or terms on a web page.

In total, there are 46 search operators that make browsing much easier, especially if you are an SEO.

I will go into more detail about them in a moment.

2. The 46 Google search operators

If you need a weather forecast for your location, or for another place, this search operator will give you results for temperature, precipitation and wind.

You are looking for a specific file type, like a PDF, DOCX, TXT, PPT or others ? Then you should use the command filetype: in the future!

With the command intext: you can display a specific search term or several search terms in one content.

You will then be shown all pages that contain your keyword in the text.

When using the site: search operator, you will only get results from a specific web page.

Mit cache: werden dir die letzen Caches für eine Webseite angezeigt

Suchoperator cache:chip.de

Use the location: search command to find Google News from a specific location.

As you can see, you will only be shown news from Berlin, just as we wanted.

With the Google command stocks: you get information about specific stocks.

If you are looking for specific anchor texts with a specific search term, you are well served with inanchor.

In our example, you will get all results with inbound links that contain either “samsung” or “samsung s21”.

With inpostauthor: you can find blog posts of a specific author on the web.

Doesn’t always work anymore, unfortunately, since Google stopped searching for blog authors in 2011.

Search for “smartwatch” or “smartphone”.

You will get either search results related to smartwatches or search results about smartphones with this search operator.

This is how you get news results from Google News for a specific source.

Returns search results that contain all words in the anchor text

inurl: returns all web pages that contain your keyword in the URL

Google’s “phonebook” search operator was unfortunately discontinued in 2010, but it gave you the ability to find the phone number for a specific name.

With “loc:placename” you will find search results from a specific area/region.

The “$” as Google search operator allows you to search for special prices on the web.

Works for all currencies except GBP £

“allintitle:” works similar to “intitle.

The only difference between the two search operators is that this command will show you all the web pages that have all the search terms you entered in the title.

Mit „map:” sagst du Google, das es dir alle Kartenergebnisse für eine Standortsuche anzeigen soll.

This command will give you only results related to respective search terms in your search.

Example:

This is how you find blog posts that have your search terms in the blog post title.

This is how you find websites related to specific domains.

This search operator helps you find web pages that point to a specific domain.

In 2017 Google discontinued this search operator, but sometimes it still does what it is supposed to do.

This search operator of Google works similar to “intext”, only that with “allintext:” all search terms entered by you are on the found page.

With this search operator you force Google to search exactly for your search term.

This way you can exclude synonyms or results that could be ambiguous.

With “ — “ you can exclude individual words or word groups that you do not want to be displayed in the search results.

Serves as a placeholder to any word or group of words.

Allows you to group multiple terms or search operators. This way you can control how the search is performed.

A command that explains the definition of a certain search term.

You use this search operator when you search for a keyword, but only on a specific web page.

This way you can display only pages that contain a certain search term or several search terms in their title tag.

In “allinurl:” you will be shown only search results that contain words specified in the URL.

With “movie:” you can get specific information for a movie like release date or showtimes,

even if we are now in the time of streaming services such as Netflix & Co 😉

This way you can convert units into another one.

You can use this operator to convert currencies, temperatures or weights into another unit.

With the search operator “ — “ you can exclude terms or even phrases.

Use the two dots if you want your search results to be searched in a certain period of time.

Finds the blog URL from the domain you want.

Unfortunately, this command sometimes gives the same results as the normal search without this search operator.

Forces an exact search for a single word or group of words.

This symbol was used to include synonyms, but Google now includes synonyms in the standard search.

But we use this command to exclude synonyms, to do that you use quotation marks “~”.

Allinpostauthor: works similar to, “inpostauthor” you just don’t have to use quotes with this command here

With info: you get information about specific web pages. You can also use id: instead of info:.

The results are the same.

daterange used to show you results for a certain date range some time ago, but unfortunately it seems that the search operator daterange: has also been discontinued.

daterange uses or rather uses a Julian date format.

f this command would still work, it would have a search result from 05 October 2011 and 05 October of the year 2013

Searches for hashtags.

Originally introduced for Google+, yet unfortunately no longer works to its full extent, as this search operator has been discontinued.

To make it easier for you, I have provided you with the 46 Google search operators as a PDF file.

3. Conclusion

Google’s search operators simplify browsing the Internet.

Because there are so many websites on the World Wide Web, these specific commands give you detailed search results for your query, so you can finally find what you are looking for.

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