SEO has become a quotidian term for the companies because they have realized the benefits of SEO for their businesses.

Hence, they are hiring more SEO professionals so that they can uplift their ranking in Google search  engine result page.

Once you have learned all the basics of SEO, you should try to push yourself to learn more so that the website will get a high rank in Google.

In this context, you should learn about Google’s advanced search operators which will help you to get a better rank in search engine.

What are search operators?

Basically, the search operators are words or symbols which make your search results more precise.

When you are using a search operator, you are telling Google to narrow down the results in a specific way.

Now, we are going to discuss the complete list of Google search operators and their functions.

Keep patience, and read the list.

Search term

You should focus an exact-match search. This operator usually refines results for ambiguous searches or sometimes

excludes synonyms particularly when searching for single words.

Example: “Steve jobs”

OR

This function is used to search for X or Y. This operator will return results related to X or Y or both. You can even use the pipe (|) operator instead of “OR.”

Example: Black OR White/Black | White

AND

This function search for both X and Y. This will return only results that are related to both X and Y. This function is very useful when paired with other operators.

Example: Black and White

This function excludes a term or phrase. In the below example, any pages returned will be related to jobs but not TCS.

Example: Jobs – TCS

*

This function generally acts as a wildcard and will match any word or phrase.

Example:  Steve * apple

( )

This function implies multiple terms or search operators to control how the search is executed.

Example: (iPad OR iPhone) Apple

$

This symbol indicates the price of a thing. Also works for Euro (€), but not GBP (£).

Example: Headphone $ 30

Define:

This is a dictionary which is built into Google. This will display the meaning of a word in a card-like result in the SERPs.

Example: define: entrepreneur

Cache:

This function returns the most recent cached version of a web page.

Example: cache: apple.com

Filetype:

This search operator restricts results to those of a certain filetype. E.g., PDF, DOCX, TXT, PPT, etc.

Example: apple filetype: pdf/ apple ext: pdf

Site:

Limit results to those from a specific website.

Example: site:apple.com

Related:

This operator finds sites related to a given domain.

Example: related: apple.com

Intitle:

This function finds pages with a certain word (or words) in the title. In the below example, any results containing either “apple” or “iPhone” in the title tag will be returned.

Example: intitle: Apple iPhone

Allintitle:

This is similar to “intitle,” but only results containing all of the specified words in the title tag will be returned.

Example: allintitle: Apple iPhone

Inurl:

This function finds pages with a certain word (or words) in the URL. For this example, any results containing either “apple” or “iPhone” in the URL will be returned.

Example: inurl: apple iPhone

Allinurl:

This is very similar to “inurl,” but only results containing all of the specified words in the URL will be returned.

Example: allinurl: Apple iPhone

Intext:

This function finds pages which contain a certain word (or words) somewhere in the content. For this example, any results containing either “apple” or “iPhone” in the page content will be returned.

Example: intext: Apple iPhone

Allintext:

This is similar to intext, but only results containing all of the specified words somewhere on the page will be returned.

Example: allintext: Apple iPhone

Around (X)

This function is known as proximity search. It finds pages which contain two words or phrases within X words of each other. For this example, the words “apple” and “iPhone” must be present in the content and no further than four words apart.

Example: apple AROUND (4) iPhone

Weather:

This search operator finds the weather for a specific location. This is displayed in a weather snippet, but it also returns results from other “weather” websites.

Example: Weather: New York

Stocks:

With this search operator, you can see stock information (i.e., price, etc.) for a specific ticker.

Example: Stocks: apple

Map:

This function forces Google to show map results for a locational search.

Example: map: silicon valley

Movie:

This search operator finds information about a specific movie. Also finds movie showtimes if the movie is currently showing near you.

Example: movie: Star wars

In

This operator converts one unit to another. This is applicable for currencies, weights, temperatures, etc.

Example: $ 257 in GBP

Source:

Find news results from a certain source in Google News.

Example: apple source: the _verge

_

This is not exactly a search operator but it acts as a wildcard for Google Autocomplete.

Example: apple CEO_jobs

#..#

This function searches for a range of numbers. In the example below, searches related to “WWDCvideos” are returned for the years 2010–2014, but not for 2015 and beyond.

Example: wwdc video 2010..2014

Inanchor

It finds pages that are being linked to with specific anchor text. For this example, any results with inbound links containing either “apple” or “iphone” in the anchor text will be returned. 

Example: inanchor: apple iPhone

Allinanchor

This is very similar to “inanchor,” but only results containing all of the specified words in the inbound anchor text will be returned.

Example: allinanchor: Apple iPhone

Blogurl

Find blog URLs under a specific domain.

Example: blogurl: Microsoft.com

Loc:placename

Find results from a given area.

Example: loc: “San Francisco “ apple

Location

Find news from a certain location in Google News.

Example: loc: “San Francisco” apple

+

This symbol forces an exact-match search on a single word or phrase.

Example: jobs+ apple

~

This symbol includes synonyms. Nowadays, it doesn’t work, because Google now includes synonyms by default.

Example: ~ apple

Inpostauthor  

It finds blog posts that are written by a specific author. This only worked in Google Blog search, not regular Google   search.

Example: inpostauthor: “Steve Jobs”

Allinpostauthor

It is similar to “inpostauthor,” but removes the need for quotes.

Example: allinpostauthor: “Steve jobs”

Inposttitle:

This search operator generally finds blog posts with specific words in the title. No longer works, as this operator was unique to the discontinued Google blog search.

Example: intitle: Apple iPhone

Link:

It finds pages that are linking to a specific domain or URL. Though Google had killed this operator in 2017, still it shows some results. It is also true that sometimes the results are not accurate.

Example: link: apple.com

Info:

This operator finds information about a specific page, including the most recent cache, similar pages, etc.

Example: info: apple.com/ id: apple.com

Daterange:

This operator finds results from a certain date range. It uses Julian Date format for many reasons.

Example: daterange: 11288-13288

Phonebook:

This operator finds someone’s phone number.

Example: phonebook: Satya Nadella#

 

This operator searches #hashtags. It was introduced for Google+; now denounced.

Example: # apple

The above, we mentioned the complete list of Google search operators which will make a huge impact on your SEO. If you use them wisely, then you will get a better result and ranking in Google search engine.