Google Search: Learning to Search

Original author: Philipp Lenssen
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So, let's look at the basics of the syntax of search queries and some tricks of search on google.com. You may already know many of them, but nevertheless, something can be very useful in your daily search.

  • To search for quotes, you can use both phrases enclosed in quotation marks and phrases connected with a hyphen:
    ["example of searching for quotes"] or [example-search-quotes]
  • Previously, Google may have misinterpreted some special characters, like [#], but now the problem has been resolved. But this still does not mean that you can use any characters, and when searching the strings [t.], [T-] or [t ^], the result will be the same.
  • Google allows up to 32 words in a search query.
  • By default, when searching with multiple keywords, the "and" operator is used. If you don’t want documents with one or another word to appear in the results, put a “-” sign in front of it: [office rental-warehouse].
  • Using the search, you can find the synonyms of the words:
    [~ test], although, as I understand it, it is not yet relevant for the Russian language.
  • If you need to find numerical values ​​from the specified interval, use the ".." operator: [2003..2006]
  • To find the definitions of different words, you can use the special operator define: [define: yandex].
  • You can find pages that link to a specific site using the link operator: [link: habrahabr.ru]
  • When forming a search query, you can use the “or” operator, it is used as a vertical bar: [blog (habr | habrahabr)] - as a result, documents containing the words “blog” and “habr” or “habrahabr” will be found
  • When issuing search results, Google takes into account the regional settings of your system, and also determines your location by IP-address, and the results can vary significantly when searching from different countries, or in different languages.
  • When searching for phrases, you can use the wildcard character "*": ["we don’t care, but we *"]. For example, it is thus convenient to search for lyrics, or quotes, if only a few words are known from them.
  • To narrow the search results for specific domains, use the site operator: [site: .promodj.ru]


Here is a list of the most interesting special operators that are allowed to search on Google (and some of them are used in Advanced Search):
  • Cache: - Returns a cached copy of the page with the specified address or URL
  • Inanchor: - Search for keywords in link text
  • Related: - Finds sites thematically related or similar to the specified
  • Info: - Shows information about the site at the specified address
  • Allinurl: - Finds pages in the URL of which all the specified keywords are found
  • Inurl: - Finds the specified keywords in the URL on the pages
  • Stocks: - Search for stock quotes from multiple sources
  • Allintitle: - Finds pages with all the specified keywords in the
    Filetype area: - Finds documents of a certain type (with a given file extension)
    Daterange: - Finds pages indexed in a given period of time


  • And finally about the button “I'm lucky” :)
    It is located on the main page of Google. On this button, Google gives the most relevant, from his point of view, result. This usually helps with a quick search for some factual information when a detailed study of the issue is not required. After clicking the “I’m lucky” button, you get directly to the site that Google offers as the one you are looking for.

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