Google Search Advanced Operators
Beyond the basic searching techniques explored in the previous articles, Google offers special terms known as advanced operators to help you perform more advanced queries.These operators, used properly, can help you get to exactly the information you’re looking for without spending too much time poring over page after page of search results. When advanced operators are not provided in a query, Google will locate your search terms in any area of the Web page, including the title, the text, the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), or the like. We take a look at the following advanced operators in this article:
■ intitle, allintitle
■ inurl, allinurl
■ filetype
■ allintext
■ site
■ link
■ inanchor
■ daterange
■ cache
■ info
■ related
■ phonebook
■ rphonebook
■ bphonebook
■ author
■ group
■ msgid
■ insubject
■ stocks
■ define
Operator Syntax
Advanced operators are additions to a query designed to narrow down the search results. Although they re relatively easy to use, they have a fairly rigid syntax that must be followed. The basic syntax of an advanced operator is operator:search_term. When using advanced operators, keep in mind the following:
■ There is no space between the operator, the colon, and the search term. Violating this syntax can produce undesired results and will keep Google from understanding what it is you’re trying to do. In most cases, Google will treat a syntactically bad advanced operator as just another search term. For example, providing the advanced operator intitle without a following colon and search term will cause Google to return pages that contain the word intitle.
■ The search term portion of an operator search follows the syntax discussed in the previous article. For example, a search term can be a single word or a phrase surrounded by quotes. If you use a phrase, just make sure there are no spaces between the operator, the colon, and the first quote of the phrase.
■ Boolean operators and special characters (such as OR and +) can still be applied to advanced operator queries, but be sure they don’t get in the way of the separating colon.
■ Advanced operators can be combined in a single query as long as you honor both the basic Google query syntax as well as the advanced operator syntax. Some advanced operators combine better than others, and some simply cannot be combined. We will take a look at these limitations later in this chapter.
■ The ALL operators (the operators beginning with the word ALL) are oddballs. They are generally used once per query and cannot be mixed with other operators.
Examples of valid queries that use advanced operators include these:
■ intitle:Google This query will return pages that have the word Google in their title.
■ intitle: “index of” This query will return pages that have the phrase index of in their title. Remember from the previous article that this query could also be given as intitle:index.of, since the period serves as any character.This technique also makes it easy to supply a phrase without having to type the spaces and the quotation marks around the phrase.
■ intitle: “index of” private This query will return pages that have the phrase index of in their title and also have the word private anywhere in the page, including in the URL, the title, the text, and so on. Notice that intitle only applies to the phrase index of and not the word private, since the first unquoted space follows the phrase index of. Google interprets that space as the end of your advanced operator search term and continues processing the rest of the query.
■ intitle: “index of” “backup files” This query will return pages that have the phrase index of in their title and the phrase backup files anywhere in the page, including the URL, the title, the text, and so on. Again, notice that intitle only applies to the phrase index of.
