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Advanced Search Tricks

Google

  • "cocotte bag": exact match

  • "* is thicker than water": * to replace a phrase inside exact match

  • jaguar -car: minus to filter out matches

  • site:time.com google: search on site, you don't need '.', e.g. 'site:gov'

  • define:bae: check definition, even for slang

  • $0..$50: numeric range (ignore $)

  • "inbound marketing" ~professional: synonyms

  • related:nationalgeographic.com: similar sites

  • this OR that: capital OR indicate or

  • this AROUND(3) that: this and that must be within the distance of 3 words

  • @(a phrase): treat everything in parathensis as one phrase (ignore @)

  • @trump: search social media

  • #northkorea: search hashtag

  • allintext:vermont ski house lake: all kw must showup

  • neil diamond intext:red sox: red must be in text, not title or url

  • inurl, allinurl: in url

  • intitle, allintitle: in title

  • inanchor:terraform: find pages that have: <a href="...">... terraform ...</a>

  • link:example.com/blog/1/2: search for backlink reference (dead, do not use)

  • location:montreal bike rental: filter by region

  • filetype:ppt: or pdf, xls, doc, csv, ogg, etc. (FULL LIST: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35287?hl=en)

  • info:ipc.me: get info of a site (NOT USEFUL)

  • cache:URL: get cached version of site

  • phonebook:1234567890

  • reference: http://time.com/4116259/google-search/ https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/google-advanced-search-tips


General Tips

  • pay more attention to the site itself. Try to figure out what category of the sites from the top results are. Also see if getting multiple results from same site.
  • When choosing keywords: try to reverse engineer from the web author POV. Try to pick unique phrases that the author would use.
  • Word ordering matters
  • Punctuation is irrelevant, except sometimes
  • use "instant suggestion" and "related search" for inspiration for finding better keyword
  • use "define" let you see word usage history
  • Get inspiration from "image, video, news, shopping, etc." tabs as well
  • use "google.com/ncr" to go to "google.com" instead of country specific google
  • To search for related pages to a WEB PAGE, use the downward arrow in the SERP. You can also see cached version
  • For simple search, ask stupid question is better than guessing what author would say: e.g. "number of cat breeds" or "how many breeds of cat" > "there are * breeds of cat".
  • Double quote: can be used to search phrase, if put around single word, search exact spelling. You can do this e.g. "Daniel "Russell" ", it would give you result of that phrase with Russell spelled out exact like that.
  • Some posts are saying that you can use "&as_qdr=y15" to show date. Basically it limit the search result to last 15 years, therefore google shows date. But be cautious some sites are not dated, e.g. "Terraform PDF Doc HN page". So those results would be ommited! Anyway you can achieve the same functionality by clicking on tools -> custom range. You can also sort by most recent this way.
  • Use "custom range" and then "News" to get news at that time
  • append "&num=1000" to show 1000 results
  • Use postal code to search local info, e.g. "H4G2M4 Maxi Hour" will get the hours as an info card
  • When clicking "Tools", for video, there is "duration", "quality", "time", "caption", "source".
  • When clicking "Tools", for image, there is "size", "color", "usage right", "type", "time".
  • When clicking "Tools", for news, there is "blog", "time", "sort".
  • When clicking "Tools", for books, there is "preview available", "magazines", "time", "sort".
  • "Personal" tab allows you to search Gmail and Browsing history.
  • To find results in other languages, click the gear icon and select language
  • Always check your fact by doing "one more search"
  • prefer short search phrase, only put in keywords that you know will appear consistently in every related source. e.g. "90 Control-F" > "90 percent know Control-F"
  • Remember something from a book you read? Find it using Google Books' Search box.
  • Use "Whois" to find info like owner of a site
  • ranking is by relevant, not authoritativeness
  • use the keyword "diagram" to search for image illustrations on Google image. Also try "graph", "chart", "table, etc.
  • use "map" and "street image" or "photo" to solve problems visually.
  • In general, group your keywords with quotes, even though it looks too specific, it is better than finding them scattered around in the search. Or better, use OR to group quoted phrases for alternatives. E.g. "empty city" OR "ghost town"

Bing

  • linkfromdomain:DOMAIN: get links pointing out from domain
  • feed:STUFF: search for feed (RSS)
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