Its not always easy to find what your looking for on Google, whether the results are skewed or your just looking for something that isn’t there, it can be frustrating especially if you don’t know which keywords to search for. Well today you are in luck, for I have comprised a list of search techniques that shall take you above and beyond search splendor.
Some of these I use daily, while others I don’t think I’ve ever used, but I hope that they still serve some purpose and are of use to you. If you are a savvy web user these may already be in your arsenal of tools, but for most people these with definitely improve upon your productivity, and if I can make that small difference in the online world my life is complete.
While Google makes it easy for you to search things like images, maps, news, photos and groups…they don’t really help you find specific’s unless you know how to do so correctly. To get the best SEO assitance for your business, visit yourveganmarketer.com.
Search Modifiers
Search modifiers help you narrow down your search from the bazillion websites that come up for your search query. Here’s some of the modifiers I use the most, and how they can help you refine your searches.
- inanchor: <keyword> — Returns pages where your keyword was used in the anchor text of other sites linking to that page.
- allinanchor: <keyword> — Returns exact results for your search query if it was used in the anchor text of other sites linking in.
- intitle: <keyword> — Returns pages where your keyword was used in the title.
- allintitle: <keyword> — Returns pages where your exact keyword(s) were used in the title.
- inurl: <keyword> — Shows pages where your <keyword> is contained within the url itself.
- allinurl: <keyword> — Shows pages where all your <keyword(s)> are used within the url itself.
- site: <website> — Returns pages from a specific website. Conversely -site will remove pages from a certain site.
- link: <website> — Shows sites linking to your search query.
- cache: <website> — Will give you the web cache of your search query.
- movie: <movie name> — Will give you information/movie times.
- stocks: <stock symbol> — On the fly stock market information. ex. stocks:GOOG
- related: <keyword>– Will return related queries for your keyword.
- time <place> — Similar to a world clock at your fingertips, just enter the place and you will be given their time of day.
- weather <place> — Same as time only for weather.
- define: <word> — Works like a dictionary to give you the definition of your search term.
- filetype: <file extension> — Will return files of a certain extension.
There are plenty more that I may have missed but these are the most used queries that I feel serve the most purpose. For an extremely comprehensive listing check out Michael Gray‘s list.
Finding Filetypes
This is probably the most underused, but most useful searches you can do on Google. Just doing a quick search for pdf documents brings me up a massive selection of books whether relevant or not. If I were to type in “ebook filetype:pdf” for example, I would get a comprehensive listing of ebooks in .pdf format, ready to download and read on a whim. Obviously you may not find what your looking for by using the term “ebook” so you can type niching it down to actual titles of books.
The great thing about the “filetype:” search modifier is that you can search for practically ANY filetype you are looking for. Whether its a pdf, mp3, avi, ppt, doc, 3gp, and the list goes on and on. This is a very powerful tool at your disposal and most people dont even know about it.
Search Tricks for SEO
While all those are fine and dandy, SEO Cincinnati says if you are looking for a certain website for SEO purposes or to do some background checks on your competition, you will find that most of those search tricks don’t really help at all. What you need is a little ingenuity.
If you are for example looking for wordpress blogs you may search:
<niche> blog “Powered by wordpress”
or
<niche> “Remember my personal information” “Notify me of follow-up comments”
With a little thinking outside the box it is possible to find pretty much anything you want. Combine this with inline search results using something like SEO for firefox and you will be blowing away your competition in no time.
If you wanted to find educational sites and didnt feel like using the scholarly search you could always use this search query in Google: site:.edu blog or take it a step further and add site:.edu <niche> + blog to find a specific genre. Obviously these are all fully customizable and will deliver different results for everyone but the method is still the same. If you have any other search queries I missed or just want to add your own feel free to leave a comment below.
Getting your website on to the first page of Google search results, is a difficult task. Thankfully, Google provides tools and guidance to improve your chances of SERP success.
Utilized properly, the dependable resources found within your Google Account, will provide valuable information; that saves time, money and frustration.
If you don’t have a Google account, you should consider exploring the benefits.
Thank you for opening up the discussion.
Best wishes.
Hi..
If we follow this advise that will leads to increase our productivity and business efficiency to become more successful..Thanks for sharing this..
Very interesting subject. I read with great pleasure. Thanks for the post.
I would get a comprehensive listing of ebooks in .pdf format, ready to download and read on a whim. Obviously you may not find what your looking for by using the term “ebook” so you can type niching it down to actual titles of books.
Excellent information. Thanks for the post. Congratulations.
You have all inspired me to focus on providing more informative and resource type link building posts in the future, so stay tuned for more soon.
good write thanks perfect
When we search for the search term mentioned above on google……a list comes containing the websites which are related to http://www.yahoo.com …..
I kow only this trick….
Can u tell me more tricks please? USEFUL ones i need….
Also explain the meaning of “i’m feeling lucky” button there plz… I would get a comprehensive listing of ebooks
Hi,
Thanks for your tips.I like to read this.If we follow this we will get increase in productivity.
Great tips. Most people miss most of them. My favorite tip you listed is filetype search, is shows people how they can easily add and share content to their site. Remember the web is based on sharing info and this is a great way to do it.
Great tips dude , very much interested to read this article. thanks for sharing..
Very , very good post and it’s really helpful for those who are into the same business. Thanks for your effort in posting.
Keeping posting like this.
Great tips, I can now search the interwebz at random~
I really appreciate your post on Google Search Tricks. It was informative and learn lot s of new things. It’s amazing how much more you can get out of search if you know how to word things for page results. I like the tip on search modifiers. Genious post!
I will try these on my website.
Thanks for this awesome post… Ya, it’s true that all the tricks are important in Google search engine. I know some of the tricks. Thanks for the other tricks. My favorite tip you listed is filetype search, is shows people how they can easily add and share content to their site.
Like when you type in “Google Chuck Norris” and click on “I’m Feeling lucky” and it sends you to the spoof page.
I know there’s one where you type in something that has to deal with being dumb or something of the sort and the first page that pops up is a link to Bush/The white house. I just don’t remember what it was.
I’d like to know if there are others too.
merchant account
thanky you. nice sharing.
Hi,
Looking for that particular image in a presentation or for invitations. As the old saying goes an image can tell a thousand words and Google Images allows you to search millions of images. Just make sure you pay attention to the copyright and attribution rules for the owner of the picture.
Good post. I actually didn’t know about the Stocks one, but the others are pretty much a daily query (each) for me these days.
One thing I noticed you didn’t discuss is the – symbol. If you don’t want the word “free” or “tips” for instance, just do a search and use:
-free -tips
at the end of the query to make sure those words won’t be used in the results.
Excellent blog and the information that you have explained here was very useful. Thanks for sharing here.
Good! =)
Very much appreciative for all these search tips.
Like leaving a link here.
Realy good work cheers mate! Thx and btw – Merry Xmas!
Awesome blog… Check mine?
Thank you for sharing this post. It’s very informative. And thank you more for the SEARCH MODIFIERS. I’ll check your other posts! God bless 😉
If you have a webpage with lot’s of links from other pages with a high page rank, you’ll have a high page rank.If google crawls your site and deems it to have good content, then you’ll have a good page rank.
Can I just answer what a pain relief it is upon someone who in fact knows what theyre talking about online.
Hey I really actually like this post thank you, it really is good
Thank you for the post. We found good productivity tools at http://adliks.com/productivity.htm Found some good used books on increasing productivity too. Thanks again.
Mostly users don’t aware about this tips.I am glad that i Found your informative article on productivity.Keep posting
thank you for your post, as a regular reader I have found your blog very informative, keep up the good work.
Thank you for the post. I paid 300 dollar for a seo education and they didn”t tell me this information. Good work
Hi this is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and say I truly enjoy reading your blog posts. Can you recommend any other blogs/websites/forums that deal with the same subjects? Thanks a ton!
Excellent post however , I was wanting to know if you could write a litte more on this subject? I’d be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit more. Appreciate it!
Oh, thanks for your sharing. These tricks are very important, because they can make you search the contents more precisely and easily.
Great post. Thanks for sharing this information about it. I am always looking for more apps
All this apps is really good to read. I’m really pleased to read about this. Love it to read these. Thanks for this allocation.
Very good post. I am going through some of these issues as well..