Google Search Operators: How to use them?

What are Google search operators?

Google Search Operators(or Advanced Search Operators) are special characters and commands that narrows down your search to specific pages. These search operators can help you from content research to technical SEO audits.

It helps you to do your job more efficiently.

How do I use search operators?

All you need to type in special characters and commands alongside text searches in the text bar.

Google Search Operators

1. site:

This operator shows results from a certain website.

Eg. site:onpagechamp.com

2. “ “ 

Google will show the results containing the exact text that is written within the quotation marks.

Eg. “how to improve organic CTR”

3. OR 

Using this search operator will bring you results for either X or Y or both. You can also use vertical pipe (|) instead of OR. 

Eg. Microsoft OR Apple, Microsoft | Apple

4. ( )

It helps you to group multiple operators and also control the order in which they shall be executed.

Eg. (Microsoft | Apple) software

5. –

Using -(minus) before a search term(or a whole operator) will exclude that term(or operator).

Eg. TESLA -space

6. *

It works as a wild card that matches any word or phrase.

Eg. Sunder * Google

7. intitle

Shows you the search results with the searched words in the titles.

Eg. intitle:best seo tools

8. allintitle

Shows you the search results with all the searched words in the titles.

Eg. allintitle:best seo tools

9. inurl

Shows you the search results with the searched words in the URL

Eg. inurl:seo tools

10. allinurl

Shows you the search results with all the searched words in the URL

Eg. allinurl:seo tools

11. intext

Shows you the search results with the searched words in the text on the page

Eg. intext:what are LSI keywords

12. allintext

Shows you the search results with all the searched words in the text on the page

Eg. allintext:what are LSI keywords

13. filetype

Helps you find a specific file type(PDF, DOC, PPT, TXT, XLS).

Eg. “Google announcements” filetype:pdf

14. related

Find you websites that are related to the targeted domain.

Eg. related:apple.com

15. AROUND(x)

Find websites where two words or phrases are within (x) words of each other.

Eg, Microsoft AROUND(3) Apple 

16. Cache

Find the most recent cached version of a web page.

Eg. cache:apple.com

17. In

Helps you convert one unit to another. It can be currencies, temperature, weights, etc.

Eg. $79 in rupees

18. Info

Helps you find information about a specific page. You will also find the most recent cache, similar pages, etc.

Eg. info:onpagechamp.com

19. allinanchor

Shows you the search results with all the searched words in the anchor text on the page

Eg. allinanchor:what are LSI keywords

The Right Way To Use Google Search Operators

1. Find out who is copying your content

You can easily find out if someone is copying your content on their website or not.

All you need to do is find a unique phrase from your content and put it after the intext operator within quotation marks and then exclude your own site with “-site:”.

Here’s how it looks:

intext:”best free on-page SEO tools” -site:onpagechamp.com

 

On the same line, you can use the intitle operator to find the duplicate copies of your content.

2. Helps you audit http -> https transition

It is a challenging task of migrating a website from http to https.

If you want to check which web pages are still not re-crawled by Google, you just need to use the site operator, the -(minus) operator and the inurl operator.

Here’s how it looks:

site:onpagechamp.com -inurl:https

3. Find indexation errors

Using the site operator, you could find out the number of pages that has been indexed by Google.

Google only gives a rough approximation when you use this operator. For full and correct details, check Google Search Console.

4. Find guest post opportunities

It becomes easy to find websites that accept guest posts with search operators.

There are many ways to find guest posting opportunities:

1. seo intitle:”write for us” inurl:”write-for-us”
2. seo (“write for us” | inurl:”guest-post” | inurl:”write-for-me”)
3. (seo | content marketing) AND (“write for us” | inurl:”guest-post”)

5. Find internal linking opportunities

Internal linking is an important aspect of on-page SEO.

They help users to explore your website. 

Also, it is essential from an SEO perspective as well. 

You need to make sure that no internal linking opportunity is missed for a web page.

To find internal linking opportunity, you can use the search operators in the following manner:

site:onpagechamp.com -site:onpagechamp.com/what-are-lsi-keywords/ intext:”lsi keywords”

6. Find websites where you can pitch infographic of yours

You can use search operators to find websites that accept infographics.

It will help you get backlinks and traffic to your website.

Here’s how to do it:

seo intitle:infographic inurl:infographic

7. How to decide whether a website is relevant for a link back to your website or not

Now, you have found a website from which you want a backlink.

To decide whether the link would be relevant or not for your website, you need to follow the steps(assuming you don’t know much about this website):

1. Do a site:domain search (Eg. site:onpagechamp.com) and note down the number of results

2. Then do site:domain [niche] search (Eg. site:onpagechamp.com seo] and note down the number of results

3. Now, divide the second number by the first. And if the ratio is more than 50%, you can approach that website for a backlink to your website.

Like for the above example – 124/137 = .90

8. Find social profiles for outreach program

You can use search operators to find social profiles of industry leaders or individuals whom you want to reach out to.

Here’s how to do it:

Neil Patel (site:twitter.com | site:facebook.com | site:linkedin.com)

Here’s the social profile of Neil Patel. Now, you can connect with him easily.

9. How to find the number of pages related to a keyword on a domain

You can find the number of web pages a particular domain consists for a particular keyword.

Here’s how to do it

Site:domainname keyword

You can find the number of web pages of your website for a particular keyword and then compare it with your competitors to know about the content gaps immediately.

10. How to find competitor mentions to find opportunities

If you know where your competitors are getting mentioned, you can approach those websites for the same. It will help you to increase your outreach to websites which you might be unaware of.

It can be a great boost to your outreach program and all this with just Google Search.

Example: intext:”competitor name” -site:competitorsite.com

Conclusion

At the end, I just want to say that these search operators can really help you improve your SEO.

You will find very specific results that can help you with technical SEO audits, content marketing research, internal linking opportunities, outreach programs, etc.

All you need to do is understand each one of them and then use it in combinations to get your desired results.

Do tell us what combinations you have tested out and whether did you get your desired result or not.