SEO: How to Super Search with Advanced Operators

ByEdna J. May

May 3, 2022 #"Business Insurance Cover Coronavirus, #5e Business Profit, #Ahron Levy Columbia Business School, #Business Consultant Certification Austin, #Business Letter With Logo Example, #Business Located Easy Location, #Business Platform Stocks, #Business Positions Seattle, #Business Regulation Legal Services, #Daystarr For Business, #Dimagi Business Development Toolkit, #Do Business Schools Accept Entreprenuers, #Enironmentall Friendly Business Ideas, #Eric Early Republican Business Owner, #Essec Business School Dean, #Essential Business To Remain Open, #Example Small Business, #Fall Winter Business Hours Template, #Fdot Woman Owned Business Certification, #First Business Women United States, #First Com Business, #Fixing A Damaged Reputation Business, #Florida Business Enforcement, #Free Small Business Communication Tool, #Law School Business Entity Outlines, #Mapping A Business Location, #Medical Business Trends Economics, #Mix Business And Personal Money, #Mlm Nit Small Business Legally, #New Business Agency Sales Questions, #Patricia Saiki Women'S Business 1990, #S Corp Business Deductions, #Safety Business Proposal, #Sample Business Plan Entrepreneur, #School Business Administration Positions, #Search Tx Business Llc, #Sentextsolutions Business Cards, #Signs For Business On Roads, #Skype For Business Recording Capacity", #Small Business Forums .Net, #Small Business Insurancr, #Tech Monkey Business, #Ttu Business Cards Template, #Turbotax Business Nys Forms, #Uf Business School General Studies, #What Business Hours Macgaffin Bar, #Yelp Business .Json, #Yelp Tax Attorney Small Business, #Your Business Department, #Zeus Panda Business Moel

Google excels at understanding your intention when typing a query in the search box. Google’s ability is so advanced it’s often hard to force it to treat your query in the literal way you’ve typed it.

Thankfully, search operators can help narrow the results to what you’re looking for. Advanced search operators help identify and evaluate organic search opportunities and competitors. And combining operators can narrow the results even more.

In this post, I’ll address foundational and advanced SEO-driven operators. I’ll also provide examples of combining them.

Note that spacing and capitalization are essential in certain operators — pay close attention to formatting in the examples below. Remember, too, that the operators apply only to organic results. Other search sections — maps, images, pay-per-click ads — may not recognize your directions.

Foundational Search Operators in Google

Operator Description Example
OR This query signals that you want either one word or another or both. The word “OR” must be in all caps. hiking OR biking
Minus Use a minus sign immediately before a word to exclude it from the search results. pets -dogs
Quote Using “quotation marks” around a word or phrase indicates that you want to see pages that match only that exact word or phrase (same order, same spelling). Google uses synonyms and close spellings frequently in its search results, so this is a handy operator when you want results to match exactly what you’re searching for. “best dresses for summer”
Wildcard The asterisk is a wildcard symbol in many software applications. In Google, the asterisk can stand-in for any word. Use it when you want to find common phrases based on your core term. It is most effective to combine with exact-match operators (in quotation marks) to force Google to extend that particular phrase. “best * for summer”
Plus The plus key (+) used immediately before a word forces Google to include pages that use that word. Unlike the exact match operator, this one allows for more flexibility. The word can be anywhere on the page without forcing Google to use an exact sequence of words. best dresses +summer
Price Placing the currency symbol in front of a number indicates a desire for products at certain price points. smartphone $300
Number range Use two dots to indicate a desire for search results within a range of numbers. This works with years and prices as well as any other numeric range. smartphone $50..$100
define: This one works like a dictionary, giving definitions of the word specified in the query. define:superfluous

Advanced Operators for SEO

Next are the operators specific to search engine optimization. These queries will help see pages as Google has them cached; monitor indexation; evaluate organic search competition; and much more.

Operator Description Example
site: “Site:” queries return Google’s indexed pages from a single domain. You can also restrict them to a specific subdomain, protocol (such as HTTPS), subdirectory, or URL. Note that Google lists only about 1,000 results. To see focused areas of a site, limit your “site:” query to a specific subdomain or subdirectory such as the example. site:www.shopify.com/blog
* cache: Google saves cached versions of web pages as it crawls and indexes them. See the last cached version of any page by putting “cache:” in front of any complete URL. If a web page has “nocache” meta tag, Google’s cache won’t be available. cache:https://www.shopify.com/blog
* related: See the sites Google thinks are related to yours — both a page and a domain. related:https://www.shopify.com/blog
filetype: This operator is handy when you’re searching for specific file types, such as PDF, JPG, or ASPX. Use any file type suffix, but it must be used in conjunction with another search operator, such as a “site:” query or a search word. filetype:pdf skin care
intext: Specifies pages that contain the single following word anywhere in the text on the page. intext:dogs
intitle: Searches for a single word in the title tag of pages. intitle:insurance
* allintitle: Searches for multiple words in the title tag of pages. allintitle: insurance dog cat
inurl: Identifies URLs that contain a single specified word or string of letters and numbers. inurl:biscuit
* allinurl: Identifies URLs that contain multiple specified words or strings of letters and numbers. allinurl: biscuit dog

* These operators don’t combine well.

Using Multiple Advanced Operators

You can combine nearly all of the advanced operators above into complex strings to narrow your search results to just a few of the most relevant. Here are a couple of examples.

Query Result
-intext:dog intitle:dog This search returns pages that contain “dog” in the title of the page but not on the page itself. This is a good way to find content with missing keywords.
intitle:dog site:amazon.com OR site:ebay.com This search will return pages that include “dog” in the title from these two domains only.

Play around with these advanced operators. With practice, they will become second nature.