Top 10 Advanced Google Search Techniques

A search operator is a way for the searcher to fine-tune their search query to try to get the most relevant results possible.

1.) “Negative Keyword”
-keyword
Printer -cartridge will show results for the word printer but not the word cartridge. 

 

2.) “File Type”
filetype:pdf
Cancer research filetype:pdf will show only results that you can download as a PDF flie.

 

3.) “Synonyms Match”
~keyword
~car will search for “car” and synonyms of “car”

 4.) “Phrase Match”
“keyword keyword”

“chocolate chip cookies” will not get results for someone who wrote “chocolate mint chip cookies”. Only those three words in that order.

5.) “OR”
The | symbol
Jessica + Williams|Wiliams|William is a search for all of those possibilities (Jessica Williams OR Wiliams OR William)

6.) “Price Range”
#…#
bedding $100…$200 will show search results for bedding between $100 and $200 dollars

7.) “All in Text”
allintext:
allintext: chicken cilantro lime recipe will show search results for recipes with these three ingredients.

MORE ADVANCED:

8.) “Search Within”
site:
Animals site:www.facebook.com will show only animal related pages within Facebook.

9.) “Date Search”
daterange:
Facebook daterange: 201408 will find only informationa and news from August 2014.

10.) “Fill in the Blank”
*
Obama signed the * bill this week will allow google to treat the star as a placeholder for any unknown term(s) and then find the best matches.