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Advanced Google Search Operators

Google supports a number of advanced search operators (http://www.google.com/help/operators.html) that you can use to help diagnose SEO issues. This
table gives a brief overview of the queries, how you can use them for SEO purposes, and examples of usage.

Operator Short description SEO application Examples

(site:)—Domain restricted search Narrows a search to (a) specific Shows approximately how many URLs site:www.google.com
domain(s)/directories are indexed by Google

From a directory site:mit.edu/research/

Includes all subdomains site:google.com

Shows sites of a specific top-level site:org


domain (TLD)

(inuRL:)/(allinurl:)—URL keyword Narrows the results to documents Find web pages having your keyword inurl:seo inurl:company
restricted search containing (a) search term(s) in the in a file path =
URLs allinurl:seo company

(intitle:)/ Restricts the results to documents Find web pages using your keyword intitle:seo intitle:company
(allintitle:)­—Title keyword restricted containing (a) search term(s) in a in a page title =
search page title allintitle:seo company

(inanchor:)/ Restricts the results to documents Find pages having the most inanchor:seo inanchor:company
(allinanchor:)—Anchor text keyword containing (a) search term(s) in the backlinks/the most powerful backlinks =
restricted search anchor text of backlinks pointing to with the keyword in the anchor text allinanchor:seo company
a page

(intext:)—Body text keyword Restricts the results to documents Find pages containing the most intext:seo
restricted search containing (a) search term(s) in the relevant/most optimized body text
body text of a page

(ext:)/(filetype:)—File type restricted Narrows search results to the pages A few possible extensions/file types: filetype:pdf
search that end in a particular file extension ext:pdf
PDF (Adobe Portable Document
Format)

HTML or .htm (Hypertext Markup


Language)

.xls (Microsoft Excel)

.ppl (Microsoft PowerPoint)

.doc (Microsoft Word)

(*)—Wildcard search Means “insert any word here” Search for a phrase “partial match” seo * directory returns “seo free
directory”,”seofriendly directory”, etc.

(Related:)—Similar URLs seach Shows related pages by finding Evaluate how relevant the site’s Compare:
pages linking to the site and looking “neighbors” are
at what else they tend to link to (i.e., related:www.linkdiy.com
“co-citation”); usually 25 to 31 results
are shown. and

related:www.alchemistmedia.com

(Info:)—Information about a URL Gives information about the given Learn whether the page has been info:netconcepts.com will show
search page indexed by Google; provides links for you the page title and description,
further URL information; this search and invite you to view its related
can also alert you to possible site pages, incoming links, and page
issues (duplicate content or possible cached version
DNS problems)

(Cache:)—See what the page looked Shows Google’s saved copy of the Google’s text version of the page cache:www.stonetemple.com
like when Google crawled it page works the same way as SEO Browser

(~keyword) Shows keywords Google thinks are Can be very useful in uncovering ~zoo ~trip will show you keywords
related to keyword related words that you should include related to zoo and trip
on your page about keyword

Twitter: @YvanJLam Web: www.crankworkscreative.com

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