<\/span><\/h3>\nAdvanced Google search operators will deliver much more specific results. Let\u2019s say you search \u201cSEO\u201d on Google right now. You will get more than 730 million results!<\/p>\n
However, if you use the allintitle<\/code> operator, which is one of the advanced Google search operators we\u2019re going to tell you about below, you can reduce this to just 14.6 million results, as you will only be presented with results that have \u201cSEO\u201d specifically in the page title.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/span>Use advanced Google search operators to take your business to the next level<\/span><\/h3>\nWith search operators, you can:<\/p>\n
\nFind content and backlink opportunities.\u00a0<\/li>\n Find SEO issues, such as glaring indexation errors.<\/li>\n Find research and statistics to improve your content.<\/li>\n Efficiently gauge how competitive certain long-tail keywords are.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/span>Search operator rules to follow<\/span><\/h3>\nThere are two important \u2018rules\u2019 to follow when refining web searches:<\/p>\n
\nIf punctuation is not part of the search operator, Google will usually ignore it.<\/li>\n Avoid spaces between your symbol or word command and your search term. For example, site:movingtrafficmedia.com <\/code>will work, however, site: movingtrafficmedia.com<\/code> will not work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/span>The best advanced Google search operators<\/span><\/h2>\nIt is so much easier to search for things online once you know about Google search operators. Once you have mastered these commands, you will wonder how you previously managed without them.<\/p>\n
<\/span>1. site:<\/span><\/h3>\n\n
As you might have guessed, this operator allows you to search for content that\u2019s hosted on a certain domain.<\/p>\n
If you want to search through specific websites like Wikipedia or YouTube, but not other sites, site:youtube.com<\/code> or site:wikipedia.org<\/code> is what you need.<\/p>\nsite: command use case\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nThere are many use cases for this particular command. Perhaps the most common is to determine the number of pages Google has indexed for a particular domain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/span>2. cache:<\/span><\/h3>\n\n
Simply put, the cache:<\/code> operator makes it possible for you to locate the most recent cached version of a specific web page.\u00a0<\/p>\ncache: command use case\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nIf you\u2019ve recently made a content update or design change, this command will show you if and when Google crawled the new changes.<\/p>\n
<\/span>3. related:\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n\n
You can use this search operator to find websites that are related to the site in question. This is only effective for large domains, such as nytimes.com<\/code> or searchengineland.com<\/code> as illustrated in the image above.\u00a0<\/p>\nrelated: command use case\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nUse the related:<\/code> command for an illuminating look into how Google categorizes your site and the competition.\u00a0<\/p>\nThis is incredibly valuable for competitive analysis when trying to understand who your digital competitors are \u2013 which may be wildly different from your offline competitors.<\/p>\n
<\/span>4. inanchor:<\/span><\/h3>\n\n
This advanced Google search operator is used when you want to locate pages containing inbound links that have the anchor text specified.<\/p>\n
In the example above, the 1,370,000 results returned will display any pages with anchor text that includes the word \u201cjon\u201d or the word \u201cclark.\u201d<\/p>\n
Note: You cannot expect accurate global results, as data is only sampled.<\/p>\n
inanchor: command use case\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nThis command is helpful when evaluating link building opportunities or competitive link audits.<\/p>\n
<\/span>5. allinanchor:<\/span><\/h3>\n\n
This operator builds on the inanchor:<\/code> command from above but makes sense when you want to conduct research for pages that include all of the words in the inbound anchor text.\u00a0<\/p>\nFor example, you can see the returned results for pages with anchor text that includes both \u201cjon\u201d and \u201cclark\u201d have decreased to 991,000.<\/p>\n
<\/span>6. inurl:<\/span><\/h3>\n\n
If you wish to find a page on a website that includes a specific word (or words) in the URL itself, then the inurl:<\/code> is the Google search operator to use.<\/p>\ninurl: command use case\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nThis search command is extremely helpful for:<\/p>\n
\nDiagnosing indexing issues (inurl:tag<\/code> to identify indexed blog tag pages).<\/li>\nContent inspiration across topics you are researching.<\/li>\n Identifying guest posting opportunities (inurl:guest-post<\/code>).\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n