– 7 Jan 2008 update –

Since publishing this post on Friday, I’ve discovered a few more Google operators that were undocumented on the help pages.  These are detailed in the text below, but listed here for your reference:

• allinanchor:
• allintext:
• author:
• group:
• id:
• inanchor:
• insubject:
• intext:
• movie:
• phonebook:
• rphonebook:

If you know of any others, please email me!

– original post follows –

During our “analyze” phase, we spend a good deal of time understanding what our client’s competitors are up to. Fortunately most are clueless when it comes to search engines; at best, we see some desultory efforts covering the title and metadata elements, and not much else.

To uncover these things we use, among other things, the advanced operators available from search engines. Here’s a list of them all from Google, Ask, Live (Microsoft) and Yahoo!. Print it out and stick it on your wall.

Note that many of these (but not all) are replicated in the various advances search pages of each search engine.

afterdate:

Implemented in Ask only.

Use after your search terms to find documents modified after the specified date. The date must be entered in yyyymmdd format, and don’t leave a space between the operator and date string.

for example, “spider pig” afterdate:20070630

allinanchor:

Implemented in Google only.

Restricts results to pages that are referenced by links with the specified text in the link’s anchor text.  It’s OK to have a space after the “allinanchor:” operator, and between the words that follow it.

For example, allinanchor: spider pig

allintext:

Implemented in Google only.

Results contain pages that have all the specified text in the document body. Spaces are fine between the operator, and the following words.

For example, allintext: spider pig

allintitle:

Implemented in Google only.

Restricts results to documents with all words of the specified text in the title element. Title is as defined by Google, and differs for HTML, PDF, Word, etc.

There is no need to enclose text in quotes, so if you use this operator to modify a search (rather than as a standalone search) it should be the last entry in your search string.

Also, word order makes a difference to the results, so try the appropriate combinations.

For example, allintitle: google analytics

allinurl:

Implemented in Google only.

Restricts results to documents with all words of the specified text in the page URL. Again, no need to enclose text in quotes.

For example, allinurl: google analytics

author:

Implemented in Google only, and applies only to Google Groups search.

This one finds all messages in a group by the author. This only takes a single word argument (no spaces), so it’s best when you use it to modify an existing GG search. If you know the author’s first and last name you will need two operators.

For example: chevrolet author:John author:Doe

group:

Implemented in Google only, and applies only to Google Groups search.

Modifies a search to return messages only for the specified group.

For example, axle nut group:alt.autos.chevrolet.malibu

beforedate:

Implemented in Ask only.

Use after your search terms to find documents modified before the specified date. The date must be entered in yyyymmdd format, and don’t leave a space between the operator and date string.

For example, “spider pig” beforedate:20080101

betweendate:

Implemented in Ask only.

Use after your search terms to find documents modified between two specified dates. The dates must be entered in yyyymmdd format, and there can’t be any spaces between the operator, dates and the comma in between the dates. Also make sure the before date is first (ie, before the comma).

For example, “spider pig” betweendate:20070630,20080101

cache:

Implemented in Google only.

Shows the version of a web page that Google holds in its cache. Also, if you include other terms in the query Google will highlight those terms in the displayed document.

For example, “spider pig” cache:http://bestuff.com/stuff/spider-pig

contains:

Implemented in Live only.

Results are limited to web pages that have links to the specified file type. Could be useful but I’m not sure what for.

For example: site:abc.net.au contains:mp3

define:

Implemented in Google only.

Another neat little information hack. Results show web pages which contain a definition of the term. Only one page of results is shown.

Note that it includes all words after the operator, so if you use it to modify a search (don’t know why you would do this) it should be the last part of the search string.

For example, define: mp3

feed:

Implemented in Live only.

Results show documents with feeds that match the search terms.

For example, feed:mp3

filetype:

Implemented in Live only.

Results return documents of the specified file type only. Only useful if you use it as a search modifier, although if you use it to list html pages you’ll discover that Live indexes around 16.7 billion html pages!

For example, fergie filetype:pdf

hasfeed:

Implemented in Live only.

Results are documents that contain a feed (Atom, RSS, etc) on pages that match your search term. Should be used as a search modifier to be useful.

For example, site:abc.net.au hasfeed:mp3

hostname:

Implemented in Yahoo! only.

This works exactly the same as the “site:” operator, and can be ignored.

id:

Implemented in Google only.

Functionally equivalent to Google’s “info:” operator.

For example, id:www.abc.net.au

inanchor:

Implemented in Google and Live.

Returns results that contain the specified text in anchor tags. This is a really, really useful one. To get multiple terms, you need to use more than one operator.

For example: inanchor:analytics inanchor:google

inbody:

Implemented in Live only.

Another operator useful for search engine optimization. This one returns documents that have the specified text in the document body.

For example: inbody:analytics inbody:google

info:

Implemented in Google only.

A good starting point for information about specific web pages. If it’s in the index, Google will provide a link to the page and also show links that will:

• Show Google’s cache of web page
• Find web pages that are similar to web page
• Find web pages that link to web page
• Find web pages from the site web page
• Find web pages that contain the term “web page”

All this functionality is available using other operators, and can also be accessed via Google Webmaster Tools page. But it’s a lazy way to kick things off from the one page.

For example, info:www.abc.net.au

inlink:

Implemented in Ask only, but it’s functionally equivalent to “inanchor:” in Microsoft Live and Google.

Searches for documents that have the specified term in anchor text. Don’t put a space between the operator and the search term, and if you need more that one term in the query use multiple “inlink:” operators.

For example, inlink:spider inlink:pig

insubject:

Implement in Google only, and applies to Google group searches.

Finds messages with the specified text in the message subject. Ok to use quotes on this one.

For example, insubject:”axle nuts”

intext:

Implemented in Google only.

Functionally equivalent to Live’s “inbody:” operator. It returned pages that have the specified text in the document body.

For example, intext:analytics intext:google

intitle:

Implemented in Ask, Google, Live, and Yahoo!.

Returns results that include the specified word in the document title. You are limited to one word, or multiple operators with one word each. It’s like a cut down version of Google’s “allintitle:” operator.

For example, intitle:analytics

inurl:

Implemented in Ask, Google, Live, and Yahoo!.

Returns results that include the specified word in the document URL. You are limited to one word, or multiple operators with one word each. It’s like a cut down version of Google’s “allinurl:” operator.

For example, inurl:analytics

ip:

Implemented in Live only.

Finds all the web pages hosted as the specified IP address. Note that the IP address must be in “dotted quad” format, like 111.112.113.114. This one is useful to see if multiple web sites are possibly run by the same person.

For example, ip:203.36.172.52

language:

Implemented in Live only.

Returns results that are tagged as the specified language. Useful as a search modifier.

For example, mp3 language:fr

last:

Implemented in Ask only.

Returns results modified within the specified time period. The defined time periods are:

• last:week
• last:2weeks
• last:month
• last:6months
• last:year
• last:2years

link:

Implemented in Google, Live, and Yahoo!.

In Google, “link:” lists web pages that have links to the specified web page. No spaces between the operator and the specified web page url.

For example, link:www.microsoft.com

In Microsoft Live, you need to add a search term as well. The results will show documents that contain the search term and have links to the specified web page.

For example, analytics link:www.microsoft.com

Yahoo! works pretty much the same as Google, however the results page offers two really useful dropdowns. The first restricts results to:

• from all pages
• except from this domain
• except from this subdomain

This is useful to show external links only that link to your domain or web page (or your competitor’s domain or web page).

The second dropdown makes this selectable by further restricting results to sites that link to the specified web page, or to the entire site - the selections are:

• only this URL
• entire site

linkdomain:

Implemented in Live only.

Like the “link:” operator, you need to add a search term as well. The functionality is similar to Yahoo!’s implementation of the “link:” operator, with the dropdown “entire site” selected.

Note that when I tested this (4 January 2008), Live was returning nil results against all “linkdomain:” queries. Either it’s busted or they’ve removed this functionality.

linkfromdomain:

Implemented in Live only.

Finds web pages that are linked to from the specified domain. This is useful to see what outbound links exist from a domain or subdomain. You need to add a search term to make this work, and it appears you need the full URL of the domain (incluing the http://) to get it to work.

For example, cricket linkfromdomain:http://www.abc.net.au

location:, loc:

Implemented in Live only.

Returns web pages from a specified country or region code (eg AU, GB, US, etc). The two character code for your country can be found all over the web, such search for them. Again you need a search term as well as the operator to make this work.

To specify multiple regions, use two or more “loc:” operators and region codes.

For example, cricket loc:AU loc:GB

movie:

Implemented in Google only.

Interesting little operator that returns movie reviews and showtimes (in the US only).

For example: movie:collector

phonebook:

Implemented in Google only.

Returns a listing of residential and business addresses and phone numbers (US only). To make this work you need to enter  as much detail as you can, and include the state abbreviation as well. Some people would have opted out of having their details shown, so the listing won’t be complete.

For example, phonebook: John Doe CA

prefer:

Implemented in Live only.

Puts an emphasis on the search term following the operator.

For example, broncos prefer:brisbane

related:

Implemented in Google only.

This is the operator that finds pages “similar” to the specified document. It’s one of life’s mysteries as to what Google deems as a “similar” document. Try this and revel in your confusion.

For example, related:www.stratify.com.au

rphonebook:

Implemented in Google only.

Works the same as Google’s “phonebook:” operator, buts limits results to residential listings only.

For example, rphonebook: John Doe CA

site:

Implemented in Ask, Google, Live, and Yahoo!.

Returns documents found only within the specified domain. Very useful to see how many pages have been indexed by each search engine. All search engine work similarly, except that ASK won’t let you specify subdirectories.

For example, site:www.stratify.com.au

stocks:

Implemented in Google only.

Neat little information hack that treats the following term as a ticker symbol, and returns a page showing stock information. Totally useless for search engine optimization, but fun nonetheless.

url:

Implemented in Live and Yahoo!.

Checks to see if the specified URL exists in the search engine index. Note that you may need to specify the full URL (include the http://) to see a result in Yahoo!.

For example, url:http://www.stratify.com.au