Top 10 Search Modifiers: Why They Matter, What They Are & How To Use Them
Here’s the entire list of the top 10 search modifiers for your perusal.
- “query”
- –query
- Query AND query
- Query OR query
- Site:example.com
- Inurl:query
- Intitle:query
- Filetype:query
- Related:query
- Inpostauthor:query
The List Of Search Modifiers And How To Use Them
1. “Query” — The Exact Match Search
How it works: Quotation marks, or “query” will Search Google for only the exact match of your query, also known as exact match search.
Example: “Page One Power link building”
Uses: Searching for an exact piece of information. Great for searching serial numbers, model numbers, obscure names, etc. Very basic, but very important in advanced search, especially when combining search modifiers to achieve specific results.
2. –Query — The Query Exclusion Modifier
How it works: the subtract modifier will remove any query you don’t want in the search results.
Example: “Jon Ball” -“Page One Power”
Uses: Trimming the fat from your search results. When searching for something specific, and you’re finding the inclusion of terms or phrases you specifically wish to avoid, simply introduce the exclusion modifier to remove them from the results.
3. Query AND query — The Query Combiner
How it works: using “AND” within search will make sure both your queries appear within each result.
Example: “Jon Ball” AND “Page One Power”
Uses: Narrow your subject within search by combining terms. Searching without the ‘AND’ operator would return results individually featuring either “Jon Ball” or “Page One Power,” as opposed to results featuring both “Jon Ball” and “Page One Power.”
Note: if you don’t use caps, you run the risk of Google thinking it’s a phrase as opposed to an operator.
4. Query OR query — The Similar Query Search
How it works: Allows you to search for multiple terms.
Example: “Jon Ball” CEO OR Founder OR Owner OR Partner
Uses: Search for multiple/similar phrases and words within one result. Typically the ‘OR’ operator is used for multiple words that express the same idea — i.e., CEO/founder/owner/partner.
5. Site:example.com — The Site Specific Search
How it works: Site:example.com will refine a Google’s search to a single website.
Example: Site:pageonepower.com “Jon Ball”
Uses: Finding information within a specific website, especially when using additional search modifiers. This can also be used to narrow down to TLDs (.gov, .com, .edu).
6. Inurl:query — The URL Specific Search
How it works: Will only return Web pages that have your query in the actual URL.
Example: inurl:Jon Ball
Uses: This search modifier has a variety of uses. Great for finding various online profiles of someone with a unique name, or finding certain types of pages (guest posts, link lists, infographics, forums, etc. etc.), and can be used effectively with site search as well.
7. Intitle:query — The Title Specific Search
How it works: The intitle:query modifier will refine search to only pages that have your query within their title.
Example: intitle:jon ball
Uses: Very similar to inurl:query, this works well for finding online profiles, different types of pages, and general information regarding your search (since they’ll have the phrase or word in the title).
8. Filetype:query — The File Specific Search
How it works: Searches only for pages hosting the type of file you specify.
Uses: Finding particular files on a particular subject. Also, as the screenshot shows, it’s a great extra filter to help find a specific piece of content on a specific site.
9. Related:query — The Related Results Search
How it works: Returns results related to your query. Note: the query can be a website, much as in site search, to return other related websites. However, the website needs to be fairly well known, otherwise related search is unlikely to find anything.
Example: Related:reddit.com
Uses: Exploring the Web, finding pages related to your query, and even finding less well known sites similar to popular sites.
10. Inpostauthor:query — The Blog Author Search
How it works: Inpostauthor: Also known as blog author search — will search blog posts for the author.
Example: inpostauthor:Jon Ball
Uses: Tracking prolific bloggers across the Web! It should be noted that this search can return pretty broad results, especially if the author’s name isn’t fairly unique.
Adding Creativity — Using Multiple Search Modifiers For Advanced Search
So, we’ve covered the top 10 search modifiers. Now, think creatively to search intelligently.
Alone, these search modifiers can help for slightly better results. But combining them together to create a truly precise search — putting together a search string — is where the magic really happens.
In fact, Dr. Pete of Moz wrote a wonderful post about advanced searching based around the site specific search, titled 25 Killer Combos for Google’s Site: Operator. Seriously, take some time to read through that — it’s a great example of how to combine various operators together to create a targeted search for precise results.
Let’s jump into some examples:
1. Track a competitor’s guest post campaign
Possible searches:
Inpostauthor:”Firstname Last” –site:mycompeitor.com
Inurl:Guest Post “Firstname Last” –site:mycompeitor.com
Intitle:Guest Post “Firstname Last” –site:mycompeitor.com
“Author: Firstname Last” –site:mycompetitor.com
“Written by Firstname Last” –site:mycompetitor.com
“Author Profile” “Firstname Last”
“About the Author” “Firstname Last”
“Author Bio” “Firstname Last”
Inurl:Author “Firstname last”
As you can see, even combining two together will give you much more precision than one alone.
I have to say my favorite search string for tracking guest posts is Inurl:author “Firstname Last.” Very simplistic, this search string is great for finding high-quality guest posts, since quality sites tend to make an author page, and the majority of these pages will have “author” in the URL.
Don’t forget to check author bios, either — plenty of people only add slight variation to their bios, allowing you to effectively exact match search for pieces of their bio to track them across the Web.
2. Brand mentions
Of course, there are tools to help with this — Google Alerts, Fresh Web Explorer, and Mention.net to name a few.
However, Google search can be used to search for brand mentions as well. Typically, it’s not quite as effective as these tools will be, but for those DIYers, or for learning advanced search, it should prove fun.
Here’s a few examples what that might look like:
-site:pageonepower.com –site:facebook.com –site:twitter.com “Page One Power” OR “pageonepower.com” OR “http://pageonepower.com/” OR “http://www.pageonepower.com/“
-site:pageonepower.com –site:facebook.com –site:twitter.com “Jon Ball” OR “Jonathan Ball” OR “CEO of Page One Power” OR “Founder of Page One Power”.
You want to remove social profiles along with your own site. After that, you should be targeting key brand terms, products, and figures within your company. Using the OR operator will allow you to search for multiple terms at once. Until recently Google had a synonym operator in the form of the tilde ( ~ ), but they unfortunately removed it.
3. Obscure files
One of the main reasons to hone your Google skills — the search for the needle in the haystack.
For this example, let’s assume you’re looking for a presentation from a conference you’ve recently attended.
Often times after a conference or event, presenters will self-host presentations due to the frequency at which conference websites update/delete their pages.
There’s a variety of ways presenters can do this — on their own site, on a third-party site (such as slideshare), or through social media.
Rather than manually checking multiple sources, let’s try an advanced Google search:
“firstname last” filetype:pdf “conference name” –site:conference.com
“firstname last” “conference name” presentation OR files OR video OR powerpoint –site:conference.com
“conference name” “presentation title” –site:conference.com
“conference name” AND “firstname last” presentation OR files OR slides OR video –site:conference.com
There’s a few that should get the ball rolling. The most important thing you can do when using search modifiers is change your search based upon the results, to further hone in your search.
Source : https://www.searchenginejournal.com/find-build-powerful-edu-backlinks/90365/
