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Google Search basics
Google search techniques:
Operator | Description | Example |
+ | Forcing a keyword (including stop words) | +this website |
- | Excludes the keyword | websites -street |
"” | Exact phase search | "website cube” |
OR | One of the two must be in the result | websites or cube |
~term | Shows you the list of keywords related to the search term (they will be bold in the search page) | ~website ~cube // will show you keywords related to these two keywords |
site: | Domain restricted search | Site:google.com //sites listed by google site:.com // all com sites site:a.com/b // results from this folder |
inurl: allinurl: | Search term in the URL | inurl:seo inurl:company = allinurl:seo company |
intitle: / allintitle: | Search term in page title | intitle:seo intitle:company = allintitle:seo company |
inanchor: / allinanchor: | Search term in the most back links | inanchor:seo inanchor:company = allinanchor:seo company |
intext: | Search term in the body text | intext:seo |
ext: / filetype: | File type restricted search | filetype:pdf ext:pdf |
* | Wild card search | seo * directory returns "seo free directory”, "seo friendlydirectory”, etc. |
related: | Similar Sites search (25-31 results) | Related:google.com |
info: | show you the page title and description, and invite you to view its related pages, incoming links, and page cached version | Info:webcube.ca |
cache: | See what the page looked like when Google crawled it | Cache:webcube.ca |
Link: | Sites pointing to your website | Link:webcube.ca |
Advance search
Combine these options:
[site:yourdomain.com intitle:keyword1] + [site:yourdomain.com intitle:keyword2] (There should be no space between colon sign and the next word)
Find the ".gov” URLs which let users post comments
site:.gov "write comments" | "post comment" |
Actual number of results:
Note that the number of results Google 'thinks' it has and shows on the first page is usually incorrect. To get the exact number append "&start=990&filter=0”to page URL. It will show the last page of results and correct number.
Uncover subscriber only/deleted content(say in experts exchange and other site) just plug in the URL (or go to Google translate)
Country specific result
add "&gl=COUNTRY_CODE” at the end of the result
US, CA, UK etc.
Usage
Learn whether the site has canonicalization problems
site:domain.com -inurl:www
Find most powerful page for a keyword
site:domain.com keyword
Search for related forums
inurl:forum OR inurl:forums seo
You can come up with many more examples
Useful operators in other search engines
Yahoo | Inlinks: | For backlinks |
|
Bing | Loc: | Location specific search | SEO loc:CA |
Bing | Linkfromdomain: | Outbound links | Linkfromdomain:domain.com |
Bing | IP: | Find Your Neighbors | Make sure no one is spamming, or your site's SEO performance may end up paying the penalty for sharing the same IP |
Vocabulary:
Stop words: words which are very common and Google won't use in the search query (for example and, for, or etc.)
Vertical search engines (onebox search): for one type of search say image, video, map, news, blog, book, job etc.
Having higher rank in these searches is comparatively easier, and it helps your "web” search
Universal search / blended search: Integrating various vertical searches (Introduced in 2007 by Google)
Meta search engines: Combine results from major search engines. Ex. Dogpile, metacrawler. Not significant to SEO
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