What are Google Search Operators and What Do They Do?
Google search operators are the name given to the operators used to obtain special results and further improve the results in searches made on Google.
Search operators help you narrow down your search results and can be useful for everything from content research to technical SEO audits. I recommend using them to get the exact results you are looking for. They can also be used for other search engines other than Google .
You can detect your pages indexed by Google that are not specified as secure with HTTPS as follows and analyze them without the need for an additional SEO crawler tool.
Why Use Google Advanced Search Operators?
Hundreds of thousands of different words are searched on Google every day and it can get harder and harder to get the results we want. You can use search operators to avoid getting lost in these results and find the content we are looking for.
How to Use Google Search Operators?
You can use search operators in the Google search box as you would a normal word search:
When you refine your searches with operators, be careful when leaving spaces between operators. In other words, site:zeo.org and site:zeo.org will not provide the same results.
List of Google Search Operators
Here is a list of operators that I consider important and that you can use in SEO:
“your search term”: Used for exact match results.
-: Allows you to exclude terms you specify.
OR: Used to obtain two terms together or results.
*: Acts as a wildcard and matches words or phrases.
AND: Shows queries with two different terms. (For example, SEO AND ADS).
cache: Shows the cache status of indexed pages.
filetype: Shows results for specific file types. (PDF, TXT)
site: Allows you to limit results to specific websites.
related: Shows similar or related sites.
intitle: Used to list the words you want in the title of the page.
intext: Used to find web pages that contain certain words.
When using with operators, Google may sometimes ask if you are a bot:
Below you can find examples of how to use search operators:
Finding Related Sites
related:sitename.com
This way, you can identify your competitors or sites overseas chinese in worldwide data that Google deems similar to your site.
Creating an Internal Link Strategy
site.zeo.org SEO
You can use this search operator to create internal links on your site, to identify pages that contain the word “x” and to link to the page you want from these pages. Google will show you relevant pages that you can link to internally.
Performing Searches You Want on a Specific Site
website: zeo.org
The site search operator is perhaps one of the most commonly used operators in SEO work. By refining this search operator, you can analyze not only your site but also your competitors' sites. For example, you can determine how many blog pages Zeo has entered the index as follows:
Showing 67 results; if you have more pages that are not indexed, you can take action to identify the issues that are causing this. The numbers listed here are not really accurate, they are just rough estimates. Keep in mind that the most accurate information is found in the index coverage reports in Google Search Console.
You can also perform analysis with the site operator to detect duplicate content on your site.
Detecting Exact Match Words
“sports news”
If you want to see the exact words you are looking for in the SERP, as in the example below, you can get help from this operator:
Although it is difficult in Turkey, if you are working for foreign sites, you can use this operator especially for guest writing . Example searches:
“guest writing”
“write for us”
“contribute”
Excluding Certain Keywords and URLs
-search term
You can use this operator to exclude the search terms you want. There are many examples of its use. For example, on Zeo's site, you can see results that do not contain blog in their URL as follows:
Cache Control
cache:zeo.org
With this search operator you can see the latest cached version of the web page found on Google. If a site is down but you still want to read something about it, you can still use this operator.
Searching for Specific Keywords in a URL
site:zeo.org inurl:sources
With the inurl search operator, you can check whether the words you want appear in the URL.
Searching Page Title Tags
intitle:andorra
intitle: The Google operator displays results for the keyword specified in the page title.
You can combine this operator with multiple operators. For example, you can search for “Austria” and find pages that contain “visa” in the page title, i.e. the <title> element, as follows:
Finding Anchor Text
inanchor:google news optimization
You can find anchor text on pages with one of my favorite search operators, inanchor. You can also use this search operator, especially when doing link building or off-page SEO work:
You can see the anchor text you want directly on the page:
Filling in the Blank
search term1 * search term2
If you want to get more words you can use the asterisk "*" wildcard operator. With the wildcard character you will get all variations of a word.
You can also see what content your competitors have recently written or updated as follows: You can get the pages you want by adding more than one operator to the "site" search operator:
