Google Search Operators - The Complete List (44 Advanced Operators) Joshua Hardwick.md

Google advanced search operators are special commands and characters that filter search results. They do this by making your searches more precise and focused.

For example, the site: operator restricts results to those from a particular site:

In this post, you’ll learn all of Google’s search operators and how to master them for SEO.

Google search operators: the complete list

Below is a brief description of what every Google search operator does.

I’ve grouped them into three categories:

• Working – Works as intended.
• Unreliable – Not officially deprecated by Google, but results are hit-and-miss.
• Not working – Officially deprecated by Google.

Here’s the full list:

Working

Search operator What it does Example “ ” Search for results that mention a word or phrase. “steve jobs” OR Search for results related to X or Y. jobs OR gates | Same as OR: jobs gates AND Search for results related to X and Y. jobs AND gates - Search for results that don’t mention a word or phrase. jobs -apple * Wildcard matching any word or phrase. steve * apple ( ) Group multiple searches. (ipad OR iphone) apple define: Search for the definition of a word or phrase. define:entrepreneur cache: Find the most recent cache of a webpage. cache:apple.com filetype: Search for particular types of files (e.g., PDF). apple filetype:pdf ext:  Same as filetype: apple ext:pdf site: Search for results from a particular website. site:apple.com related: Search for sites related to a given domain. related:apple.com intitle: Search for pages with a particular word in the title tag. intitle:apple allintitle: Search for pages with multiple words in the title tag. allintitle:apple iphone inurl: Search for pages with a particular word in the URL. inurl:apple allinurl: Search for pages with multiple words in the URL. allinurl:apple iphone intext: Search for pages with a particular word in their content. intext:apple iphone allintext: Search for pages with multiple words in their content. allintext:apple iphone weather: Search for the weather in a location. weather:san francisco stocks: Search for stock information for a ticker. stocks:aapl map: Force Google to show map results. map:silicon valley movie: Search for information about a movie. movie:steve jobs in Convert one unit to another. $329 in GBP source: Search for results from a particular source in Google News. apple source:the_verge before: Search for results from before a particular date. apple before:2007-06-29 after: Search for results from after a particular date. apple after:2007-06-29

SIDENOTE.

You can also use the _ operator, which acts as a wildcard in Google Autocomplete.

Unreliable

Search operator	What it does	Example
#..#	Search within a range of numbers.	iphone case $50..$60
inanchor:	Search for pages with backlinks containing specific anchor text.	inanchor:apple
allinanchor:	Search for pages with backlinks containing multiple words in their anchor text.	allinanchor:apple iphone
AROUND(X)	Search for pages with two words or phrases within X words of one another.	apple AROUND(4) iphone
loc:	Find results from a given area.	loc:”san francisco” apple
location:	Find news from a certain location in Google News.	location:”san francisco” apple
daterange:	Search for results from a particular date range.	daterange:11278-13278

Not working (officially dropped by Google)

Search operator	What it does	Example
~	Include synonyms in the search. Dropped in 2013.	~apple
"+"	Search for results mentioning an exact word or phrase. Dropped in 2011.	jobs +apple
inpostauthor:	Search for posts by a specific author in the discontinued Google Blog Search.	inpostauthor:”steve jobs”
allinpostauthor:	Same as inpostauthor:, but removes the need for quotes.	allinpostauthor:steve jobs
inposttitle:	Search for posts with certain words in the title in Google’s discontinued Blog Search.	inposttitle:apple iphone
link:	Search for pages linking to a particular domain or URL. Dropped in 2017.	link:apple.com
info:	Search for information about a specific page or website. Dropped in 2017.	info:apple.com
id:	Same as info:	id:apple.com
phonebook:	Search for someone’s phone number. Dropped in 2010.	phonebook:tim cook
#	Search for hashtags on Google+. Dropped in 2019 when Google+ shut down.	#apple

11 ways to use Google search operators

Let’s tackle a few ways to put these operators into action.

My aim here is to show that you can achieve almost anything with Google advanced operators if you know how to use and combine them. So don’t be afraid to play around and deviate from the examples below. You may just discover something new.

Prefer video?

Check out nine actionable Google search operator tips in Sam Oh’s video.

1. Find possible indexing issues

Eyeballing the results of a site: search for your website can uncover potential indexing issues.

For example, if we combine it with the filetype: operator, we see that this 3D printing company has quite a few PDFs indexed:

This isn’t a bad thing if it’s intentional, but I have a feeling it isn’t for some of these.

For instance, its site has a lead-generation landing page for a white paper about the total cost of ownership for 3D printers:

But this PDF is indexed, so you can easily access it without filling in your details:

The site owners should probably add an x-robots noindex tag to solve this.

2. Find and analyze your competitors

Use the related: operator to find websites related to yours, which are often competitors.

You can then use other search operators to investigate these sites further.

For example, if we search for site:moz.com, we can quickly see that it has published a lot of content on its blog, help section, and “SEO Learning Center.”

If we adjust our site: operator to focus on its Learning Center, we can start to get a sense of the type of content published and what it’s about.

In this case, it looks like there are lots of definition-type posts.

In fact, if we add intitle:("what is"|"what are") to our search, we see 86 matching pages.

However, what Google can’t tell us is whether these pages get any organic traffic. To find that out, we’ll need to use a third-party tool.

If you’re an Ahrefs user:

1. Go to Site Explorer
2. Enter the competitor’s domain or subsection
3. Check the Top pages report

If you’re not an Ahrefs user, you can use our free traffic checker to check pages one by one:

WEBSITE TRAFFIC CHECKER

See search traffic estimates for any website or webpage

Both of these methods show that many of its definition-type posts are getting in excess of 20K estimated monthly organic visits. So this could be a good type of content to create if you wanted to attract search traffic in this niche.

In fact, that’s exactly what we did with our SEO glossary.

Here’s its organic traffic growth over the last few months:

3. Find guest post opportunities

Most people find guest posting opportunities by searching for “write for us” pages in their niche.

For example, if you have a website about coffee, you can search for something like coffee intitle:"write for us" inurl:write-for-us:

However, as lots of people are using this method, you’ll often end up pitching the same sites as everyone else. For that reason, a better method is to find a serial guest blogger in your niche and look for sites they’ve written for.

You can do this by searching for [topic] inurl:author/[firstname-lastname].

For example, this search finds websites Ryan Stewart has written for:

You can also do this in Ahrefs’ Content Explorer by searching for [topic] author:[firstname lastname"].

The benefit of using Content Explorer over Google is that you can filter the results to focus on high-quality websites. Plus, not every site will use the /author/firstname-lastname/ footprint.

For example, we can easily filter for posts from websites with a Domain Rating (DR) above 30 and an estimated website traffic of at least 5K per month.

SIDENOTE.

This can sometimes generate a few false positives, depending on how common the person’s name is.

You can even highlight results from domains that haven’t linked to you so you can prioritize getting backlinks from more websites.

4. Find resource page opportunities

Resource pages curate and link to the best resources on a topic. This makes them great link prospects if you have a fitting resource.

To find them in Google, search for: [topic] intitle:resources inurl:resources.

For example, if you want to build links to a coffee resource, you can search for this:

However, not all of these pages will be worth pitching. You’ll find that some just link to their own resources, so you’ll need to sift through them and pitch the relevant ones.

If you want an even easier way to find resource pages, try this:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter the domain of a big competitor
3. Go to the Backlinks report
4. Filter for backlinks with “resources” in the Ref. page URL

5. Find files you don’t want in Google’s index

You probably don’t want Google to index every file you upload to your website.

For example, if you have PDFs behind lead magnets or content upgrades, you probably want to protect those files to prevent people from finding them on Google.

Let’s use the filetype: operator to check for these on ahrefs.com.

It looks like there’s one PDF indexed, which is an old resource from 2017.

If we were bothered about people finding this (we’re not), we’d want to set this file to noindex with an x-robots header response.

6. Find the email address of the person you want to reach out to

People often share their email addresses on Twitter, so you can use search operators to find those tweets.

For example, if you wanted to find Tim Soulo’s email address, you could search for any of his tweets that mention the word “email” and “gmail.com” or “ahrefs.com” (as his email address is almost certainly at one of those domains).

If you do this, his email address pops up right away:

FURTHER READING

• 6 Ways to Find Anyone’s Email Address (Tried & Tested)

7. Find opportunities to add internal links

Internally linking to important content from other relevant pages on your website can send it more traffic and potentially help it to rank higher in organic search.

For example, let’s say we wanted to add some internal links to our list of SEO tips.

If we search in Google for site:ahrefs.com/blog "SEO tips", we’ll find blog posts mentioning the phrase “SEO tips” somewhere in their content.

In this case, we can ignore the first result, as this is the post we want to build internal links to. But there are 99 other results mentioning SEO tips, and many of them are perfect contextual internal link opportunities.

For instance, our guide to creating SEO content has an unlinked mention of “SEO tips,” so this is the perfect opportunity to add an internal link.

That said, the one downside of using search operators to find internal link opportunities is that they don’t distinguish between linked and unlinked mentions. In other words, they often find opportunities you’ve already taken advantage of.

For example, our search found a mention of “SEO tips” in our list of SEO techniques:

But if we find that mention on the page, we see that it’s already internally linked:

If this happens a lot and you find it frustrating, sign up for a free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools account and try this instead:

1. Crawl your website with Site Audit
2. Go to the Internal Link Opportunities tool in Site Audit
3. Add your target page’s URL to the search field
4. Select “Target page” from the dropdown next to the search field
5. Hit the return key

You should see a list of opportunities like this:

It tells you:

• Where to link from (Source page).
• Where to add the link (Keyword context).
• Where to link to (Target page).

FURTHER READING

• Internal Links for SEO: An Actionable Guide

8. Find “best” listicles that don’t mention your brand

Let’s say you run an email marketing tool like ConvertKit.

If you search Google for “best email marketing tools,” you’ll find thousands of results listing top picks:

Given that you probably want to be featured on these lists, it’ll be helpful to see which ones do and don’t mention you already, right? That way, you can reach out to the authors of lists not mentioning your tool and see if you can get them to add you.

Luckily, you can do that by appending your search with -[your business name]:

Alternatively, if you want an even quicker method, you can use Ahrefs’ Content Explorer.

If you’re not familiar with Content Explorer, it’s a search engine for marketers with an index of over 11 billion pages. You can use this search to find listicles that don’t mention your brand: title:"best [whatever]" -[yourbrand].

For example, if we look for lists of the best email marketing tools that don’t mention ConvertKit, we get 3,182 results:

What makes Content Explorer more convenient than Google is that you can filter the results by things like DR, estimated website and page traffic, and more. Then you can export them in a few clicks.

For example, if we restrict the results to one page per domain and filter for websites with a DR of 30 or more, we narrow things down from 3,182 to 156 pages.

This is a much more manageable number of websites to review and potentially reach out to.

9. Find websites that have reviewed competitors

If a website posts a review of a competitor, chances are it may also be willing to review you.

Here’s how to find competitor reviews: allintitle:review ([competitor 1] OR [competitor 2]).

For example, if we wanted to find reviews of ConvertKit competitors, we could search for this:

If you like, you can add the after: operator into the mix to find recently published posts. This way, you can focus on pitching websites that you know are still active.

SIDENOTE.

You can use Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar to download search results.

However, all of this is once again easier in Content Explorer because you can filter and export the results more easily.

Here’s how to run the same search there:

1. Choose “In title” as the search mode
2. Search for review (mailchimp OR aweber)
3. Filter for one page per domain

This gives us 2,948 results, which is a lot. So let’s prioritize our list by filtering for pages published in the last 12 months on websites that get at least 1K monthly search visits:

GET ALERTS FOR NEW COMPETITOR REVIEWS

Just set up a new “Mentions” alert in Ahrefs Alerts. You can use the same search from Content Explorer and filters for DR and domain traffic too.

10. Find relevant Quora questions to answer

Quora is a website where people ask questions, contributors post answers, and the best ones get upvoted to the top.

As my colleague, Si Quan Ong, has proven, it’s a great place to build brand awareness. He’s had over 2 million views on his answers and continues to get over 25K views every month despite his recent inactivity:

When it comes to finding questions to answer, Quora’s search function works well. The downside is that you can only search for one topic at once.

As Quora uses the question itself as the URL, you can overcome this problem with this search operator: site:quora.com inurl:([topic 1] | topic 2).

For example, if you have a health and fitness website, you can search for something like this:

If you’re an Ahrefs user, you can even combine this with the SEO Toolbar to overlay traffic estimates on the SERP. That way, you can focus on answering questions that already get organic traffic.

Or if you want an even faster method, try this:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter quora.com
3. Go to the Top pages report
4. Filter for results with URLs that contain particular words

This will give you a list of relevant Quora answers, sorted by their estimated monthly search traffic from high to low.

For example, one of the questions above asks whether it’s better to make a protein shake with milk or water and gets an estimated 792 monthly visits. If you can answer this question well and get upvoted, chances are hundreds of people will see your answer every month.

Even better, as you can include links in your answers, these answers can send some nice referral traffic your way.

11. Find how fast your competitors are publishing new content

Combine the site: operator with before: and/or after: operators to find out how much content any competitor has published in a given time period.

For example, here’s how many posts another SEO blog published in December 2022:

And here’s how many it published in the whole of 2022:

Just be aware that this operator isn’t always 100% accurate, as it includes updated pages.

For example, the search below returns a post with January 25, 2022, attached to it:

But if we plug that post’s URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, we see that it’s been attracting organic traffic since 2019. So it must have existed long before 2022.

If you’re an Ahrefs user and want a more accurate way to see a competitor’s publishing frequency, run a site: search in Content Explorer and filter for “Pages published once.”

Final thoughts

Google advanced search operators are super powerful. You just have to know how to use them.

But I have to admit that some are more useful than others, especially when it comes to SEO. I find myself using site:, intitle:, and inurl: often. Yet I rarely use allintitle: and many of the other more obscure operators.

I’d also add that many operators are borderline useless unless paired with another operator, or two, or three.

So do play around with them and let me know what you come up with.

I’d be more than happy to add any useful combinations you discover to the post.

Got questions? Ping me on Twitter.

google-search-operator.md

Google Search Operators

Ultimate Guide to Google Search Operators and Parameters

Advanced search operators can be entered directly into the Google search box to refine your search. Search parameters can be used to construct your own search strings by typing them into the address bar, also called the Chrome omnibar.

A search operator might look like:

allintitle: tesla vs edison

A search parameter might look like:

https://www.google.com/search?q="nikola+tesla"

What are Google search operators?

Google search operators are special characters and commands sometimes called “advanced operators” or search parameters that extend the capabilities of regular text searches. Search operators can be useful for everything from content research to technical SEO audits.

How do I use search operators?

You can enter search operators directly into the Google search box, just as you would a text search:

Except in special cases (such as the “in” operator), Google will return standard organic results.

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Google search operators cheat sheet

You can find all of the major organic search operators below, broken up into three categories: “Basic”, “Advanced”, and “Unreliable”. Basic search operators are operators that modify standard text searches.

I. Basic search operators " " "nikola tesla" Put any phrase in quotes to force Google to use exact-match. On single words, prevents synonyms. OR tesla OR edison Google search defaults to logical AND between terms. Specify "OR" for a logical OR (ALL-CAPS). tesla edison The pipe ( ) operator is identical to "OR". Useful if your Caps-lock is broken :) ( ) (tesla OR edison) alternating current Use parentheses to group operators and control the order in which they execute.

• tesla -motors Put minus (-) in front of any term (including operators) to exclude that term from the results.

• tesla "rock * roll" An asterisk (*) acts as a wild-card and will match on any word. #..# tesla announcement 2015..2017 Use (..) with numbers on either side to match on any integer in that range of numbers. $ tesla deposit $1000 Search prices with the dollar sign ($). You can combine ($) and (.) for exact prices, like $19.99. € €9,99 lunch deals Search prices with the Euro sign (€). Most other currency signs don't seem to be honored by Google. in 250 kph in mph Use "in" to convert between two equivalent units. This returns a special, Knowledge Card style result.

Advanced search operators are special commands that modify searches and may require additional parameters (such as a domain name). Advanced operators are typically used to narrow searches and drill deeper into results.

II. Advanced search operators intitle: intitle:"tesla vs edison" Search only in the page's title for a word or phrase. Use exact-match (quotes) for phrases. allintitle: allintitle: tesla vs edison Search the page title for every individual term following "allintitle:". Same as multiple intitle:'s. inurl: tesla announcements inurl:2016 Look for a word or phrase (in quotes) in the document URL. Can combine with other terms. allinurl: allinurl: amazon field-keywords nikon Search the URL for every individual term following "allinurl:". Same as multiple inurl:'s. intext: intext:"orbi vs eero vs google wifi" Search for a word or phrase (in quotes), but only in the body/document text. allintext: allintext: orbi eero google wifi Search the body text for every individual term following "allintext:". Same as multiple intexts:'s. filetype: "tesla announcements" filetype:pdf Match only a specific file type. Some examples include PDF, DOC, XLS, PPT, and TXT. related: related:nytimes.com Return sites that are related to a target domain. Only works for larger domains. AROUND(X) tesla AROUND(3) edison Returns results where the two terms/phrases are within (X) words of each other.

Unreliable operators have either been found to produce inconsistent results or have been deprecated altogether. The "link:" operator was officially deprecated in early 2017. It appears that "inanchor:" operators are still in use, but return very narrow and sometimes unreliable results. Use link-based operators only for initial research.

III. Unreliable/deprecated operators ~ ~cars Include synonyms. Seems to be unreliable, and synonym inclusion is default now.

• +cars Force exact-match on a single phrase. Deprecated with the launch of Google+. daterange: tesla announcements daterange:2457663-2457754 Return results in the specified range. Can be inconsistent. Requires Julian dates. link: link:nytimes.com Find pages that link to the target domain. This operator was deprecated in early 2017. inanchor: inanchor:"tesla announcements" Find pages linked to with the specified anchor text/phrase. Data is heavily sampled. allinanchor: allinanchor: tesla announcements Find pages with all individual terms after "inanchor:" in the inbound anchor text.

Note that, for all of the "allin...:" operators, Google will try to apply the operator to every term following it. Combining "allin...:" operators with any other operators will almost never produce the desired results.

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Search operator tips & tricks

Having all of the pieces is only the first step in building a puzzle. The real power of search operators comes from combining them.

1. Chain together operator combos

You can chain together almost any combination of text searches, basic operators, and advanced operators:

"nikola tesla" intitle:"top 5..10 facts" -site:youtube.com inurl:2015

This search returns any pages that mention "Nikola Tesla" (exact-match), have the phrase "Top (X) facts" in the title, where X ranges from 5 to 10, are not on YouTube.com, and have "2015" somewhere in the URL.

2. Hunt down plagiarized content

Trying to find out if your content is unique or if someone is plagiarizing you? Use a unique phrase from your text, put it in quotes (exact-match) after an "intext:" operator, and exclude your own site with "-site:"...

intext:"they were frolicking in our entrails" -site:moz.com

Similarly, you can use "intitle:" with a long, exact-match phrase to find duplicate copies of your content.

3. Audit your HTTP->HTTPS transition

Switching a site from HTTP to HTTPS can be challenging. Double-check your progress by seeing how many of each type of page Google has indexed. Use the "site:" operator on your root domain and then exclude HTTPS pages with "-inurl:"...

site:moz.com -inurl:https

This will help you track down any stragglers or find pages that might not have been re-crawled by Google.

These are just a few examples of a nearly infinite set of combinations. Looking for more examples? You're in luck! We've created a mega-list of 67 examples to catapult you toward site operator mastery.

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Deep dive into Google search parameters

Ever wanted to know how to construct your own Google search strings? This ultimate guide contains all of Google's search string parameters. you can also build your own advanced search using google's advanced search form.

http://www.google.com/search?

Google's URL. You'll see it if you look at the address bar, or Chrome omnibar.

q=query+goes+here

The query string. Words are separated by + signs.

Everything from here on in is preceded by an & sign, as it's tagged on to the end. Here's where things get interesting...

1. Exact match query

as_epq=query+goes+here

Results must include the query, in the word order displayed.

Shows as "query goes here"

2. Advanced "Or" filter

as_oq="query+string"+goes+here

Results must include one or more of the words in this string.

Basically, it's like a more advanced version of the one above, using an "or" filter. Thus, every result must have the main initial query, and one or more of the sets of terms in these strings.

Shows as "query string" OR goes OR here

3. Negative Keywords

as_eq=don't+include+these+words

Results must NOT include any words in this string.

Shows as -don't -include -these -words

4. Limit the number of results

num=xx

Controls the number of results shown.

Must be a numeric value, and can be anything up to 100. Doesn't work with fractions.

5. Filetype match

as_filetype=extension

Only returns results that end in .extension. Currently supports any input. Try it - make a file with a random extension, get it indexed and do a search. Also shows that as long as it validates to something.

Shows as filetype:extension

6. Limit results to one site

as_sitesearch=example.com

Limits results to just the site you choose.

Shows as site:example.com

7. Find results from specific dates

as_qdr=x

Swap out x for the following to limit the search to only files first indexed in:

• d - the previous 24 hours
• w - the previous seven days
• m - the previous month
• y - past year
• mn - the previous n number of months. So m2 would be the previous two, m3 would be three, and so on. Does work into double digits

8. Find pages with specific usage rights

as_rights=xxx

Limits the search to files/pages that have certain rights. The options are:

• (cc_publicdomain|cc_attribute|cc_sharealike|cc_noncommercial|cc_nonderived) - free to use or share
• (cc_publicdomain|cc_attribute|cc_sharealike|cc_nonderived).-(cc_noncommercial) - free to use or share, including commercially
• (cc_publicdomain|cc_attribute|cc_sharealike|cc_noncommercial).-(cc_nonderived) - free to use, share, or modify
• (cc_publicdomain|cc_attribute|cc_sharealike).-(cc_noncommercial|cc_nonderived) - free to use, share, or modify commercially

If you want to make up your own, put the bits you want in brackets, separated by pipe characters (|), and exclude the bits you don't by putting them in brackets, preceded by .- and again pipe-separated.

9. Do an allintitle search as a query string

allintitle%3Asearch+terms

This is actually appended to the q= parameter, hence a search for fishing with the allintitle term "sea bass" would require the following query:

q=fishing+allintitle%3Asea+bass

Shows as allintitle:search terms

N.B. This also works with allintext to search page body text, allinurl for searching the URL, and allinanchor for finding sites that are linked to with certain anchor text.

10. Find products in a specific price range

nnn..yyyy

Like the allin parameters, this is actually appended to the q= parameter. What this does though is let you search for results between numeric ranges. For example, if you wanted to find documents with numbers between 15 and 100, you'd put in 15..100. Very useful for finding products in a price range, when combined with the site limiter. Works with $, £, and other such things.

Shows as query 15..100

11. Do + searches as a query string

%2Bterm

Again, this is appended to the q= parameter. The %2B is actually the + sign encoded, and will return results featuring only the term used, with no pluralisations, alternate tenses, or synonyms.

Shows as +term

12. Find results for your search term, and synonyms

~term

Another one that's appended to the q= parameter. Returns results for the term used and synonyms.

Shows as ~term

13. Find definitions for your search term

define%3Aword

Yet another q= parameter add-on. Returns definitions for the word you put in.

Shows as define:word

14. Find results for two words that can have other words in between

term * term two

And another q= parameter add-on. Returns results with listings that contain both words, with other words between them.

15. Use Google's calculator via query string

n+n2, n-n2, n/n2, n*n2, n^n2 and n% of n2

Google's calculator functions. They are, in order, add, subtract, divide, multiply, raise to the power of, and return x percentage of.

16. Modify safe search

safe=active

Sets safe search to on. To turn it off, change active to images.

17. Find similar sites

as_rq=example.com

Finds sites Google thinks are related to the URL you put in.

Shows as query related:example.com

18. View a site's backlinks

as_lq=example.com

Finds sites that link to the URL you put in.

Shows as query link:example.com

19. Open a new window

newwindow=n

Opens clicked listings in a new window. Very useful for opening lots of documents at a time, for competitor research. Set to 1 to activate, and 0 to turn it off.

20 . Modify personalized search

pws

Controls whether personalised search is on or not. Set to 1 to activate, and 0 to turn it off.

21 . Stop Adwords from collecting data

adtest=on

Turns off AdWords database connection, so your browsing won't show up as an impression, and will disable the URLs. Set to on to activate, and off to turn it off.

22 . Simulate a button click

btnG=Search

Simulates a click on the normal Google results buttom. Change to btnI to get the I'm Feeling Lucky button result.

23 . Change input encoding settings

ie=

Controls the input encoding settings. This defaults to UTF-8, and is worked out server-side, hence changing it doesn't do anything.

24 . Change output encoding settings

oe=

Controls the output encoding settings. Works in the same way as ie, so you can tinker away, but it won't do anything.

25 . Change language

&hl=value

Changes the interface language. I won't list them all here, but you can find them all here.

26 . Limit languages

lr=value

Limits the languages used to return results. Not hugely effective. That said, here's the list of all of them:

• lang_ar - Arabic
• lang_hy - Armenian
• lang_be - Belarusian
• lang_bg - Bulgarian
• lang_ca - Catalan
• lang_hr - Croatian
• lang_cs - Czech
• lang_da - Danish
• lang_nl - Dutch
• lang_en - English
• lang_eo - Esperanto
• lang_et - Estonian
• lang_tl - Filipino
• lang_fi - Finnish
• lang_fr - French
• lang_de - German
• lang_el - Greek
• lang_iw - Hebrew
• lang_hu - Hungarian
• lang_is - Icelandic
• lang_id - Indonesian
• lang_it - Italian
• lang_ja - Japanese
• lang_ko - Korean
• lang_lv - Latvian
• lang_lt - Lithuanian
• lang_no - Norwegian
• lang_fa - Persian
• lang_pl - Polish
• lang_pt - Portuguese
• lang_ro - Romanian
• lang_ru - Russian
• lang_sr - Serbian
• lang_sk - Slovak
• lang_sl - Slovenian
• lang_es - Spanish
• lang_sv - Swedish
• lang_th - Thai
• lang_tr - Turkish
• lang_uk - Ukrainian
• lang_vi - Vietnamese
• lang_zh-CN - Chinese Simplified
• lang_zh-TW - Chinese Traditional

27 . Only view pages from certain locations

cr=countryXX

Limits the search results to pages/sites from certain locations. Change XX to any of the following, to limit the results:

• AF - Afghanistan
• AL - Albania
• DZ - Algeria
• AS - American Samoa
• AD - Andorra
• AO - Angola
• AI - Anguilla
• AQ - Antarctica
• AG - Antigua and Barbuda
• AR - Argentina
• AM - Armenia
• AW - Aruba
• AU - Australia
• AT - Austria
• AZ - Azerbaijan
• BS - Bahamas
• BH - Bahrain
• BD - Bangladesh
• BB - Barbados
• BY - Belarus
• BE - Belgium
• BZ - Belize
• BJ - Benin
• BM - Bermuda
• BT - Bhutan
• BO - Bolivia
• BA - Bosnia and Herzegovina
• BW - Botswana
• BV - Bouvet Island
• BR - Brazil
• IO - British Indian Ocean Territory
• VG - British Virgin Islands
• BN - Brunei
• BG - Bulgaria
• BF - Burkina Faso
• BI - Burundi
• KH - Cambodia
• CM - Cameroon
• CA - Canada
• CV - Cape Verde
• KY - Cayman Islands
• CF - Central African Republic
• TD - Chad
• CL - Chile
• CN - China
• CX - Christmas Island
• CC - Cocos (Keeling) Islands
• CO - Colombia
• KM - Comoros
• CG - Congo - Brazzaville
• CD - Congo - Kinshasa
• CK - Cook Islands
• CR - Costa Rica
• CI - Cote d'Ivoire
• HR - Croatia
• CU - Cuba
• CY - Cyprus
• CZ - Czech Republic
• DK - Denmark
• DJ - Djibouti
• DM - Dominica
• DO - Dominican Republic
• EC - Ecuador
• EG - Egypt
• SV - El Salvador
• GQ - Equatorial Guinea
• ER - Eritrea
• EE - Estonia
• SZ - Eswatini
• ET - Ethiopia
• FK - Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
• FO - Faroe Islands
• FJ - Fiji
• FI - Finland
• FR - France
• GF - French Guiana
• PF - French Polynesia
• TF - French Southern Territories
• GA - Gabon
• GM - Gambia
• GE - Georgia
• DE - Germany
• GH - Ghana
• GI - Gibraltar
• GR - Greece
• GL - Greenland
• GD - Grenada
• GP - Guadeloupe
• GU - Guam
• GT - Guatemala
• GN - Guinea
• GW - Guinea-Bissau
• GY - Guyana
• HT - Haiti
• HM - Heard and McDonald Islands
• VA - Holy Sea
• HN - Honduras
• HK - Hong Kong
• HU - Hungary
• IS - Iceland
• IN - India
• ID - Indonesia
• IQ - Iraq
• IE - Ireland
• IL - Israel
• IT - Italy
• JM - Jamaica
• JP - Japan
• JO - Jordan
• KZ - Kazakhstan
• KE - Kenya
• KI - Kiribati
• KP - Korea, Democratic People's Republic of
• KR - Korea, Republic of
• KW - Kuwait
• KG - Kyrgyzstan
• LA - Lao People's Democratic Republic
• LV - Latvia
• LB - Lebanon
• LS - Lesotho
• LR - Liberia
• LY - Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
• LI - Liechtenstein
• LT - Lithuania
• LU - Luxembourg
• MO - Macau
• MK - Macedonia
• MG - Madagascar
• MW - Malawi
• MY - Malaysia
• MV - Maldives
• ML - Mali
• MT - Malta
• MH - Marshall Islands
• MQ - Martinique
• MR - Mauritania
• MU - Mauritius
• YT - Mayotte
• MX - Mexico
• FM - Micronesia, Federated States of
• MD - Moldova, Republic of
• MC - Monaco
• MN - Mongolia
• MS - Montserrat
• MA - Morocco
• MZ - Mozambique
• MM - Myanmar
• NA - Namibia
• NR - Nauru
• NP - Nepal
• NL - Netherlands
• AN - Netherlands Antilles
• NC - New Caledonia
• NZ - New Zealand
• NI - Nicaragua
• NE - Niger
• NG - Nigeria
• NU - Niue
• NF - Norfolk Island
• MP - Northern Mariana Islands
• NO - Norway
• OM - Oman
• PK - Pakistan
• PW - Palau
• PS - Palestinian Territory
• PA - Panama
• PG - Papua New Guinea
• PY - Paraguay
• PE - Peru
• PH - Philippines
• PN - Pitcairn
• PL - Poland
• PT - Portugal
• PR - Puerto Rico
• QA - Qatar
• RE - Reunion
• RO - Romania
• RU - Russian Federation
• RW - Rwanda
• SH - Saint Helena
• KN - Saint Kitts and Nevis
• LC - Saint Lucia
• PM - Saint Pierre & Miquelon
• VC - Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• WS - Samoa
• SM - San Marino
• ST - Sao Tome and Principe
• SA - Saudi Arabia
• SN - Senegal
• CS - Serbia and Montenegro
• SC - Seychelles
• SL - Sierra Leone
• SG - Singapore
• SK - Slovakia
• SI - Slovenia
• SB - Solomon Islands
• SO - Somalia
• ZA - South Africa
• GS - South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands
• ES - Spain
• LK - Sri Lanka
• SD - Sudan
• SR - Suriname
• SJ - Svalbard & Jan Mayen
• SE - Sweden
• CH - Switzerland
• SY - Syrian Arab Republic
• TW - Taiwan
• TJ - Tajikistan
• TZ - Tanzania
• TH - Thailand
• TL - Timor-Leste
• TG - Togo
• TK - Tokelau
• TO - Tonga
• TT - Trinidad and Tobago
• TN - Tunisia
• TR - Turkey
• TM - Turkmenistan
• TC - Turks and Caicos Islands
• TV - Tuvalu
• UG - Uganda
• UA - Ukraine
• AE - United Arab Emirates
• GB - United Kingdom
• US - United States
• UM - United States Minor Outlying Islands
• UY - Uruguay
• UZ - Uzbekistan
• VU - Vanuatu
• VE - Venezuela
• VN - Viet Nam
• VG - Virgin Islands (British)
• VI - Virgin Islands (U.S.)
• WF - Wallis and Futuna Islands
• EH - Western Sahara
• YE - Yemen
• ZM - Zambia
• ZW - Zimbabwe

Keep learning

• Mastering Google Search Operators in 67 Easy Steps
• SEO Essentials Certification
• Beginner's Guide to SEO: How Search Engines Work: Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking