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Okay so they’re definitely geeky, but I love advanced search operators. For those of you who haven’t geeked out your Googling lately, advanced search operators are phrases that you add into your search query that have special meaning to the search engine during a search. These aren’t just for Google – All of the major search engines offer advanced search operators, but since you’re already Googling, let’s check out some ways you can pimp out your search.

For Rookies:

Cache: Shows you the most recent cached version of a webpage, and highlights the keyword phrase you’re searching. What it’s good for: Determining the last time Google cached a particular webpage and seeing how well a page is optimized for any give keyword phrase.

What your search would look like:

Link: Returns webpages that have links to the specified webpage. What it’s good for – Well, not much these days since Google doesn’t disclose all the links when you use this operator anymore. However, it’s still worth knowing this operator so you can do some research on your own site, and on competitor sites, but Yahoo SiteExplorer will give you better results these days.

What your search will look like:

Related: Shows you pages that Google thinks are related to any given webpage. What it’s good for – Learning more about what Google thinks of your site through association. By identifying sites that Google thinks are related to your site, and to competitor sites, you can find some good link building targets. Okay, and if you’re an avid online shopper like me, you can use this to find stores similar to the one you’re shopping.

What your search will look like:

Site: This operator is super useful when used in combination with a keyword phrase, either to limit your search to one site, or to exclude one site altogether. For example, if you wanted to find sites that included the phrase “NCAA Champion” but you didn’t want your search to include The University of Kansas website (@MrHallas), your search would look like this:

Or let’s suppose you wanted to find out which pages of a site contain a specific keyword phrase? In that case you would use the site: operator in combination with the keyword phrase, like this:

For SEO’s:

If your in charge of optimizing websites for your own business or for clients, then you most likely have used long strings of advanced operators to find very SEO-specific information about your website or competitors’ sites. For example, when evaluating the competition for any given keyword phrase, you most likely want to know how many pages are in Google’s index that include that specific keyword phrase in the title tag, in anchor text, and in the url string, all of which are factors that help with search engine optimization. And of course, you don’t want your client’s site included in the search since you only want to see competitor information. In that case, you’d spit out something crazy looking like this:

intitle:funny intitle:tshirts inanchor:funny inanchor:funny inurl:funny inurl:tshirts -site:fishpie.com
*Fictitious client site used for the purpose of this exercise.

For Socialites:

Bored with the SEO-flavored advanced search operators? Don’t worry, Google has something in store for you social media butterflies too. For instance, maybe you’d like to find some interesting people to follow or reach out to on Twitter. Maybe you own a new winery and you’re looking to connect with some wine bloggers. You could tell Google to find people on twitter whose bio includes the phrase “wine blogger” with this nifty search:

There is an excellent post with more social media related searches here, thanks to DSG for sharing.

For Laziness:

Movies: If you’re like me, you can’t ever remember how to spell Wehrenberg anyway, so use the lazy person’s route to finding moving times and locations with movie:

Weather: Yahoo repeatedly asks me to enter my zipcode to get the weather, even when I’m logged in, which has been annoying me for quite a long time now. It’s much easier to use the weather: operator in Google, but unfortunately it’s not any better at predicting St. Louis weather than our local weather forecasters.

If you’re super lazy, bookmark this guide for the lazy searcher compliments of Google.

About the Author
Erin Steinbruegge is a Partner at The Loud Few who specializes in interactive marketing strategy. You can learn more about her here or follow her on twitter at twitter.com/steinburglar.