Google Search Operators

The following table lists the search operators that work with each Google
search service. Click on an operator to jump to its description — or, to
read about all of the operators, simply scroll down and read all of this
page.

Search
Search Operators
Service
allinanchor:, allintext:, allintitle:, allinurl:, cache:,define:, filetype:, id:, inan
Web Search
chor:, info:, intext:, intitle:,inurl:, link:, phonebook:, related:, site:

Image Search allintitle:, allinurl:, filetype:, inurl:, intitle:, site:

Groups allintext:, allintitle:, author:, group:, insubject:, intext:,intitle:

Directory allintext:, allintitle:, allinurl:, ext:, filetype:, intext:,intitle:, inurl:

News allintext:, allintitle:, allinurl:, intext:, intitle:, inurl:,location:, source:

Product Search allintext:, allintitle:

The following is an alphabetical list of the search operators. This list includes operators that
are not officially supported by Google and not listed in Google’s online help.

Note: Google may change how undocumented operators work or may eliminate them
completely.

Each entry typically includes the syntax, the capabilities, and an example. Some of the search
operators won’t work as intended if you put a space between the colon ( :) and the subsequent
query word. If you don’t care to check which search operators require no space after the
colon, always place the keyword immediately next to the colon. Many search operators can
appear anywhere in your query. In our examples, we place the search operator as far to the
right as possible. We do this because the Advanced Search form writes queries in this way.
Also, such a convention makes it clearer as to which operators are associated with which
terms.

allinanchor:
 If you start your query with allinanchor:, Google restricts results to pages containing all
query terms you specify in the anchor text on links to the page. For example,
[ allinanchor: best museums sydney ] will return only pages in which the anchor text
on links to the pages contain the words “best,” “museums,” and “sydney.”

Anchor text is the text on a page that is linked to another web page or a different
place on the current page. When you click on anchor text, you will be taken to the
page or place on the page to which it is linked. When using allinanchor: in your query,
do not include any other search operators. The functionality of allinanchor: is also
available through the Advanced Web Search page, under Occurrences.

allintext:

If you start your query with allintext:, Google restricts results to those containing all
the query terms you specify in the text of the page. For example, [ allintext: travel
packing list ] will return only pages in which the words “travel,” “packing,” and “list”
appear in the text of the page. This functionality can also be obtained through the
Advanced Web Search page, under Occurrences.

allintitle:

If you start your query with allintitle:, Google restricts results to those containing all
the query terms you specify in the title. For example, [ allintitle: detect plagiarism ]
will return only documents that contain the words “detect” and “plagiarism” in the
title. This functionality can also be obtained through the Advanced Web Search page,
under Occurrences.

The title of a webpage is usually displayed at the top of the browser window and in
the first line of Google’s search results for a page. The author of a website specifies
the title of a page with the HTML TITLE element. There’s only one title in a webpage.
When using allintitle: in your query, do not include any other search operators. The
functionality of allintitle: is also available through the Advanced Web Search page,
under Occurrences.

In Image Search, the operator allintitle: will return images in files whose names contain
the terms that you specify.

In Google News, the operator allintitle: will return articles whose titles include the
terms you specify.

allinurl:
 If you start your query with allinurl:, Google restricts results to those containing all the
query terms you specify in the URL. For example, [ allinurl: google faq ] will return
only documents that contain the words “google” and “faq” in the URL, such as
“www.google.com/help/faq.html”. This functionality can also be obtained through the
Advanced Web Search page, under Occurrences.

In URLs, words are often run together. They need not be run together when you’re
using allinurl:.

In Google News, the operator allinurl: will return articles whose titles include the terms
you specify.

The Uniform Resource Locator, more commonly known as URL, is the address that
specifies the location of a file on the Internet. When using allinurl: in your query, do
not include any other search operators. The functionality of allinurl: is also available
through the Advanced Web Search page, under Occurrences.

author:

If you include author: in your query, Google will restrict your Google Groups results to

include newsgroup articles by the author you specify. The author can be a full or
partial name or email address. For example, [ children author:john author:doe ] or
[ children author:[email protected] ] return articles that contain the word
“children” written by John Doe or [email protected].

Google will search for exactly what you specify. If your query contains [ author:”John
Doe” ] (withquotes), Google won’t find articles where the author is specified as “Doe,
John.”

cache:

The query cache:url will display Google’s cached version of a web page, instead of the
current version of the page. For example, [ cache:www.eff.org ] will show Google’s
cached version of the Electronic Frontier Foundation home page.

Note: Do not put a space between cache: and the URL (web address).

On the cached version of a page, Google will highlight terms in your query that appear
after thecache: search operator. For example, [ cache:www.pandemonia.com/flying/ fly
diary ] will show Google’s cached version of Flight Diary in which Hamish Reid’s
documents what’s involved in learning how to fly with the terms “fly” and “diary”
highlighted.
define:

If you start your query with define:, Google shows definitions from pages on the web
for the term that follows. This advanced search operator is useful for finding definitions
of words, phrases, and acronyms. For example, [ define: blog ] will show definitions
for “Blog” (weB LOG).

ext:

This is an undocumented alias for filetype:.

filetype:

If you include filetype:suffix in your query, Google will restrict the results to pages
whose names end in suffix. For example, [ web page evaluation checklist filetype:pdf ]
will return Adobe Acrobat pdf files that match the terms “web,” “page,” “evaluation,”
and “checklist.” You can restrict the results to pages whose names end with pdf and
doc by using the OR operator, e.g. [  email security filetype:pdf OR filetype:doc ].

When you don’t specify a File Format in the Advanced Search Form or
the filetype: operator, Google searches a variety of file formats; see the table in File
Type Conversion.

group:

If you include group: in your query, Google will restrict your Google Groups results to

newsgroup articles from certain groups or subareas. For example, [ sleep
group:misc.kids.moderated ] will return articles in the group misc.kids.moderated that
contain the word “sleep” and [ sleep group:misc.kids ] will return articles in the
subarea misc.kids that contain the word “sleep.”

id:

This is an undocumented alias for info:.

inanchor:

If you include inanchor: in your query, Google will restrict the results to pages
containing the query terms you specify in the anchor text or links to the page. For
example, [ restaurants inanchor:gourmet ] will return pages in which the anchor text
on links to the pages contain the word “gourmet” and the page contains the word
“restaurants.”

info:
 The query info:URL will present some information about the corresponding web page.
For instance, [ info:gothotel.com ] will show information about the national hotel
directory GotHotel.com home page.

Note: There must be no space between the info: and the web page URL.

This functionality can also be obtained by typing the web page URL directly into a
Google search box.

insubject:

If you include insubject: in your query, Google will restrict articles in Google Groups to
those that contain the terms you specify in the subject. For example,
[ insubject:”falling asleep” ] will return Google Group articles that contain the phrase
“falling asleep” in the subject.

Equivalent to intitle:.

intext:

The query intext:term restricts results to documents containing term in the text. For

instance, [ Hamish Reid intext:pandemonia ] will return documents that mention the
word “pandemonia” in the text, and mention the names “Hamish” and “Reid”
anywhere in the document (text or not).

Note: There must be no space between the intext: and the following word.

Putting intext: in front of every word in your query is equivalent to putting allintext: at

the front of your query, e.g., [ intext:handsome intext:poets ] is the same as
[ allintext: handsome poets ].

intitle:

The query intitle:term restricts results to documents containing term in the title. For

instance, [ flu shot intitle:help ] will return documents that mention the word “help” in
their titles, and mention the words “flu” and “shot” anywhere in the document (title or
not).

Note: There must be no space between the intitle: and the following word.

Putting intitle: in front of every word in your query is equivalent to putting allintitle: at

the front of your query, e.g., [ intitle:google intitle:search ] is the same as [ allintitle:
google search ].
inurl:

If you include inurl: in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents
containing that word in the URL. For instance,
[ inurl:print site:www.googleguide.com ] searches for pages on Google Guide in which
the URL contains the word “print.” It finds pdf files that are in the directory or folder
named “print” on the Google Guide website. The query [ inurl:healthy eating ] will
return documents that mention the words “healthy” in their URL, and mention the
word “eating” anywhere in the document.

Note: There must be no space between the inurl: and the following word.

Putting inurl: in front of every word in your query is equivalent to putting allinurl: at the

front of your query, e.g., [ inurl:healthy inurl:eating ] is the same as [ allinurl: healthy
eating ].

In URLs, words are often run together. They need not be run together when you’re
using inurl:.

link:

The query link:URL shows pages that point to that URL. For example, to find pages
that point to Google Guide’s home page, enter:

[ link:www.googleguide.com ]

Note: According to Google’s documentation, “you cannot combine a link: search with

a regular keyword search.”

Also note that when you combine link: with another advanced operator, Google may
not return all the pages that match. The following queries should return lots of results,
as you can see if you remove the -site: term in each of these queries.

Find links to the Google home page not on Google’s own site.

[ link:www.google.com -site:google.com ]

Find links to the UK Owners Direct home page not on its own site.

[ link:www.www.ownersdirect.co.uk -site:ownersdirect.co.uk ]

location:
 If you include location: in your query on Google News, only articles from the location
you specify will be returned. For example, [ queen location:canada ] will show articles
that match the term “queen” from sites in Canada. Many other country names work;
try them and see.

Two-letter US state abbreviations match individual US states, and two-letter Canadian

province abbreviations (like NS for Nova Scotia) also work — although some provinces
don’t have many newspapers online, so you may not get many results. Some other
two-letter abbreviations — such as UK for the United Kingdom — are also available.

movie:

If you include movie: in your query, Google will find movie-related information. For
examples, seeGoogle’s Blog.

phonebook:

If you start your query with phonebook:, Google shows all public U.S. resudence
telephone listings (name, address, phone number) for the person you specify. For
example, [ phonebook: John Doe New York NY ] will show phonebook listings of
everyone named John Doe in New York, NY.

related:

The query related:URL will list web pages that are similar to the web page you specify.
For instance, [ related:www.consumerreports.org ] will list web pages that are similar
to the Consumer Reports home page.

Note: Don’t include a space between the related: and the web page url.

You can also find similar pages from the “Similar pages” link on Google’s main results
page, and from the similar selector in the Page-Specific Search area of the Advanced
Search page. If you expect to search frequently for similar pages, consider installing
a GoogleScout browser button, which scouts for similar pages.

site:

If you include site: in your query, Google will restrict your search results to the site or
domain you specify. For example, [ admissions site:www.lse.ac.uk ] will show
admissions information from London School of Economics’ site and [ peace site:gov ]
will find pages about peace within the .govdomain. You can specify a domain with or
without a period, e.g., either as .gov or gov.

Note: Do not include a space between the “site:” and the domain.
 You can use many of the search operators in conjunction with the basic search
operators +, –, OR, and " ". For example, to find information on Windows security from
all sites except microsoft.com, enter:

[  windows security –site:microsoft.com  ]

You can also restrict your results to a site or domain through the domains selector on
the Advanced Search page.

source:

If you include source: in your query, Google News will restrict your search to articles

from the news source with the ID you specify. For example, [ election
source:new_york_times ] will return articles with the word “election” that appear in
the New York Times.

To find a news source ID, enter a query that includes a term and the name of the
publication you’re seeking. You can also specify the publication name in the “news
source” field in the Advanced News Search form. You’ll find the news source ID in the
query box, following the source: search operator. For example, let’s say you enter the
publication name Ha’aretz in the News Source box, then you click the Google
Search button. The results page appears, and its search box contains [ peace
source:ha_aretz__subscription_ ]. This means that the news source ID is
ha_aretz__subscription_. This query will only return articles that include the word
“peace” from the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz.
weather

If you enter a query with the word weather and a city or location name, if Google
recognizes the location, the forecast will appear at the top of the results page.
Otherwise, your results will usually include links to sites with the weather conditions
and forecast for that location.

Since weather is not an advanced operator, there is no need to include a colon after
the word. For example, [ weather Sunnyvale CA ] will return the weather for
Sunnyvale, California and [ weather 94041 ] will return the weather for the city
containing the zip code (US postal code) 94041, which is Mountain View, California.

The Google Guide Advanced Operator Quick

Reference(www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html) provides a nice summary of
the search operators grouped by type. It includes search operators not yet documented by
Google,
e.g.,allinanchor:, allintext:, author:, ext:, group:, id:, insubject:, intext:, intitle:, location:,phonebook:,
and source:.
Note: Google may change how undocumented operators work or eliminate them completely.
If you notice problems or changes in Google’s undocumented operators, please let us know.

Exercises

This problem set is designed to give you experiences with search operators and practice with
specifying more precisely what you’re seeking by using the Advanced Search form. For hints
and answers to selected problems, see the Solutions page.

1. Use the site: operator to search for armchairs on IKEA’s site, www.ikea.com.

2. Use the Advanced Search form to find the page whose title is “Some Ways to Detect
Plagiarism.” When the title is entered in lowercase letters, the query box on the results
page contains [allintitle:  “ways to detect plagiarism” ].
3. Find all pages on google.com but not on answers.google.com nor
on directory.google.com whose titles include the words “FAQ” or “help.”
4. Use the link: operator to see who links to googleguide.com, your company’s website,
or your favorite website.
5. Find pages whose titles include surfing that are not about surfing the World Wide Web.
6. Find out where the upcoming international conference on AIDS is being held.
7. How can you search for [ google help ] on Google Guide, www.googleguide.com, and
on the UC Berkeley library website, www.lib.berkeley.edu?

tags (keywords): advanced search, operators, queries, search operators

Updated: Sunday May 9, 2010