Google's Search String Guide | List of Search Parameters

Google Search strings are used by many, especially webmasters. They are designed to give stats and results for specialized queries. I am publishing this guide in hopes to help other webmasters navigate the built in development and statistical tools of Google Search. There are many additional strings, I am sure, feel free to comment them and I will update the post with credit.

1. cache: {cache:} You can add other words in the search query and Google will highlight the words in the cached pages. {cache:www.seocog.com SEO} will display the cached page content/copy with the word "SEO" highlighted. {cache:} will display display the cache copy of the Cog's main/default page. There are no spaces between the "cache:" and the page URL.


2. info: {info:} will display info that Google has about that page. {info:www.seocog.com} will show information about the Google homepage. There are no spaces between the "info:" and the page URL.


3. link: {link:} will display the pages that are linking to the queried page{link:www.seocog.com} will produce pages that have links directed to the Cog main/default page. There are no spaces between the "link:" and the page URL.


4. related: {related:} will produce pages that Google deems "similar" to the queried page. {related:www.seocog.com} will display pages that are similar to the Cog main/default page. There are no spaces between the "related:" and the page URL.


5. site: {site:} restricts the displayed results to indexed pages in that domain. {backlinks site:www.seocog.com} will serve up pages about "backlinks" within http://www.seocog.com/. {site:www.seocog.com} will produce the indexed URLs in the domain. There are no spaces between the "site:" and the page URL.


6. {site:www.seocog.com/&} displays all of the domain's pages residing in the supplemental/sandbox index. {site:seocog.com/&} displays sitewide supplemenatals including sub domains. There are no spaces site, colon, and command. (Updated 8/1/2007) M. Prough (Update..Again 9/8/07 Use this at your own risk...Google is clearly not going to make this an easy task) Additional help in determining probable supplemental pages.


7. allintitle: {allintitle:} will limit the displayed results to those with all of the queried words in the site's title. For instance, {allintitle: SEO news} will display only the pages that have both "SEO" and "news" in the title(tag). The search terms will also be bold in results. There is a space between the allintitle: and the terms.


8. intitle: {intitle:} will produce results containing that word in the title. For instance, {intitle:cog news} will yield pages that have the word "cog" in the title, and use the word "news" somewhere in the page. There are no spaces between the "intitle:" and the search terms.
9. allinurl: {allinurl:} restricts the displayed results to pages with all of the search query terms in the URL. {allinurl: diy cog} will give you . It also ignores punctuation. Results will be given for space or no space between the allinurl: and the search terms.
10. inurl: {inurl:} will narrow the produced results to pages with the queried terms in the URL. {inurl:seo blog} will produce only pages that have the term "seo" in their URL, and have the term "blog" somewhere in the page. There are no spaces between the "inurl:" and the search terms.
11. define: {define:} will yield definitions of the terms you enter after the command string from the web. {define: seo} will produce the definition of seo. If there is more than 1 term all will be processed as a phrase or 1 unit, not split up. Results will be given for space or no space between the define: and the search terms.
12. allinanchor: {allinanchor:} Will display the pages Google has links using all of the anchor text search terms you input. {allinanchor: SEO News Blog} will give me any page using that exact anchor text. Results will be given for space or no space between the define: and the search terms.
13. intext: {intext:} Will produce pages using any combination of the queried search terms in the pages text/copy. {intext:seocog.com} will show me pages with the full term seocog.com in text/copy. {intext:seocog.com blog} will produce any page using the terms "seocog.com and/or "blog". As you can see this can get very broad. There are no spaces between the "intext:" and the search terms.
14. allintext: {allintext:} Will return results in which all queried search terms used appear the in text/copy of the page. There are no spaces between the "allintext:" and the search terms.
15. Excluding words/terms in regular search. In Google Search you are searching for say SEO Firms, but you don't want any in Ohio. This also works with a filetype: command, "seo article -filetype:pdf"...would exclude pdfs from the results. You would search seo firms -ohio. There cannot be a space between the "-" and the excluded term.
16. Forcing the inclusion of word/terms in regular search. In Google Search you are searching for say SEO Firms,and you specifically want one in Akron,Ohio. You would search seo firms -ohio. You would search seo firms +Akron, Ohio. This also works with a filetype: command, "seo article +filetype:pdf"...would return only pdfs in the results. There cannot be a space between the "+" and the forced term.
17. Google has the Boolean logic by default so if you search for "seo forum" without quotes it will resolve to "seo and forum". Searching the same phrase with the quotes intact will return seo forums.

I hope this guide is helpful, wish I had it couple of years ago. :P Please feel free to comment with any additional operators or tips that are helpful for webmasters and I will update the post and credit you or your source.

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