How to Use Google to Find More Relevant Information Faster than Ever

Posted on 18. Feb, 2009 by Julius.

Google Operator Search
Google now a days is the most popular search engine there is on the Internet. This of course has its reasons, one being that Google has developed a very sophisticated search algorithm. This leads to a high accuracy of search results. But if you want to take your searching skills a bit further you have to know about Google operators.

Use Google to Find What You Are Looking For

To find the exact information you are looking for you have to get used to using operators.

What are Operators? Operators are keywords that make it easier for Google to find the specific information you want to look at.

So let’s just take a look at the various operators and what they do.

Important Operators

Operator	Explanation
” “	Use quotes to find pages containing the exact wording. Using a query like “how to use google” would just show web sites containing the exact phrase how to use google. If you do not use quotes Google will only return pages that contain the keywords how, to, use, google.
inurl:	If included in a query Google will return pages that have the word following it in the URL. Searching for inurl:google search would return web pages with google in its URL and also sites containing the word search.
allinurl:	allinurl is almost the same as inurl, there is only one difference. When using allinurl Google will search for sites having all of the following keywords in their URL. Querying for allinurl:google search just gives you results of web pages that have the keywords google and search in their URL.
filetype:	Filetype is special operator that tells Google to only look for files with the requested type. The following search filetype:xml would only return xml documents.
intitle:	You can use intitle when you want to search for sites that contain a special keyword in the title. Entering intitle:books makes Google print out pages that include the word books in their title.
allintitle:	Allintitle is a way of telling Google that all of its following keywords should be existent in the respective title. If you are searching for allintitle:books marketing Google’s results will only include pages using the keywords books and marketing in their title. If you would do the same query with intitle:books marketing the search engine would indeed return web sites with book in their title but they would also have to use the word marketing somewhere along the page.
site:	The site operator forces search engines to return only documents or web sites that are on that specific page. Entering site:google.com/help would only return sub pages of the help page.
link:	The link tag is used to find web site that link to the entered page. Querying for link:google.com/help will show web sites that link to google.com/help.
[#]…[#]	This operator makes Google search within a range of numbers. Searching for DVD player $100…150 would list pages that contain the keywords DVD and player and list only those that fall into the price range of $100-150.
related:	The related operator is not often used but it might be helpful if you are trying to find pages that are similar or related to the one you entered. Again entering related:andbreak.com will show web sites that are similar to andbreak.com

To sharpen your mad search skills we will take a look at an example. Let’s suppose you want to search for web sites containing the keyword icq (the instant messenger).

Google search: icq

This would return web sites that have mentioned the keyword icq. Suppose that you now want to find icq log files. You could do this by adding a filetype operator.

Google search: icq filetype:log

Now Google would only return files of the type “.log” and these have to of course contain the keyword icq.

Go ahead and use these operators to refine your searches. Use your knowledge to find pdf files that are about Internet marketing or SEO.

If you want to know even more about the topic, take a look at the Google operators, and the cheat sheet.

Related posts: