8/11/2018 Google Search Operators: The Complete List (42 Advanced Operators)

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Google Search Operators: The Complete List (42

Advanced Operators)
Joshua Hardwick (https://ahrefs.com/blog/author/joshua-hardwick/) May 22, 2018 878 shares
30 Comments (https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-advanced-search-operators/#disqus_thread)

For anyone that’s been doing SEO for a while, Google advanced search operators—i.e.,
special commands that make regular ol’ searches seem laughably basic in comparison—are
nothing new.

Here’s a Google search operator you may be familiar with. 

197


681


the “site:” operator restricts results to only those from a speci ed site.

It’s easy to remember most search operators. They’re short commands that stick in the mind.

But knowing how to use them effectively is an altogether different story.

Most SEOs know the basics, but few have truly mastered them.

In this post, I’ll share 15 actionable tips to help you master search operators for SEO, which are:
1. Find indexation errors
2. Find non‐secure
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3. Find duplicate content issues

4. Find unwanted les and pages on your site
5. Find guest post opportunities
6. Find resource page opportunities
7. Find sites that feature infographics… so you can pitch YOURS
8. Find more link prospects… AND check how relevant they are
9. Find social pro les for outreach prospects
10. Find internal linking opportunities
11. Find PR opportunities by nding competitor mentions
12. Find sponsored post opportunities
13. Find Q+A threads related to your content
14. Find how often your competitors are publishing new content
15. Find sites linking to competitors

But rst, here’s a complete list of all Google search operators and their functionality.

Google Search Operators: The Complete List

Did you know that Google is constantly killing useful operators (https://searchengineland.com/google-drops-
another-search-operator-tilde-for-synonyms-164403)?

That’s why most existing lists of Google search operators are outdated and inaccurate.

For this post, I personally tested EVERY search operator I could nd.

Here is a complete list of all working, non‐working, and “hit and miss” Google advanced search operators as of
2018.

“search term”
Force an exact‐match search. Use this to re ne results for ambiguous searches, or to exclude synonyms when
searching for single words.

Example: “steve jobs” (https://www.google.com/search?&q=%22steve+jobs%22)

OR
Search for X or Y. This will return results related to X or Y, or both. Note: The pipe (|) operator can also be used
in place of “OR.”

Examples: jobs OR gates (https://www.google.com/search?&q=jobs+OR+gates) / jobs | gates

(https://www.google.com/search?&q=jobs+%7C+gates)

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Search for X and Y. This will return only results related to both X and Y. Note: It doesn’t really make much
difference for regular searches, as Google defaults to “AND” anyway. But it’s very useful when paired with
other operators.

Example: jobs AND gates (https://www.google.com/search?&q=jobs+AND+gates)

-
Exclude a term or phrase. In our example, any pages returned will be related to jobs but not Apple (the
company).

Example: jobs -apple (https://www.google.com/search?q=jobs+-apple)

*
Acts as a wildcard and will match any word or phrase.

Example: steve * apple (https://www.google.com/search?q=%22steve+*+apple) 

()
Group multiple terms or search operators to control how the search is executed.

Example: (ipad OR iphone) apple (https://www.google.com/search?q=%28ipad+OR+iphone%29+apple)

$
Search for prices. Also works for Euro (€), but not GBP (£)

Example: ipad $329 (https://www.google.com/search?q=ipad+%24329)

de ne:
A dictionary built into Google, basically. This will display the meaning of a word in a card‐like result in the
SERPs.

Example: de ne:entrepreneur (https://www.google.com/search?q=de ne%3Aentrepreneur)

cache:
Returns the most recent cached version of a web page (providing the page is indexed, of course).

Example: cache:apple.com (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Aapple.com)

letype:
Restrict results to those of a certain letype. E.g., PDF, DOCX, TXT, PPT, etc. Note: The “ext:” operator can
also be used—the results are identical.

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Example: apple letype:pdf (https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+ letype%3Apdf) / apple ext:pdf

(https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+ext%3Apdf)

site:
Limit results to those from a speci c website.

Example: site:apple.com (https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aapple.com)

related:
Find sites related to a given domain.

Example: related:apple.com (https://www.google.com/search?q=related%3Aapple.com)

intitle:
Find pages with a certain word (or words) in the title. In our example, any results containing the word “apple”
in the title tag will be returned.

Example: intitle:apple (https://www.google.com/search?q=intitle%3Aapple)

allintitle:
Similar to “intitle,” but only results containing all of the speci ed words in the title tag will be returned.

Example: allintitle:apple iphone (https://www.google.com/search?q=allintitle%3Aapple+iphone)

inurl:
Find pages with a certain word (or words) in the URL. For this example, any results containing the word
“apple” in the URL will be returned.

Example: inurl:apple (https://www.google.com/search?q=inurl%3Aapple)

allinurl:
Similar to “inurl,” but only results containing all of the speci ed words in the URL will be returned.

Example: allinurl:apple iphone (https://www.google.com/search?q=allinurl%3Aapple+iphone)

intext:
Find pages containing a certain word (or words) somewhere in the content. For this example, any results
containing the word “apple” in the page content will be returned.

Example: intext:apple (https://www.google.com/search?q=intext%3Aapple)

allintext:
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Similar to “intext,” but only results containing all of the speci ed words somewhere on the page will be
returned.

Example: allintext:apple iphone (https://www.google.com/search?q=allintext%3Aapple+iphone)

AROUND(X)
Proximity search. Find pages containing two words or phrases within X words of each other. For this example,
the words “apple” and “iphone” must be present in the content and no further than four words apart.

Example: apple AROUND(4) iphone (https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+AROUND(4))

weather:
Find the weather for a speci c location. This is displayed in a weather snippet, but it also returns results from
other “weather” websites.

Example: weather:san francisco (https://www.google.com/search?q=weather%3Asan+francisco)

stocks:
See stock information (i.e., price, etc.) for a speci c ticker.

Example: stocks:aapl (https://www.google.com/search?q=stocks%3Aaapl)

map:
Force Google to show map results for a locational search.

Example: map:silicon valley (https://www.google.com/search?q=map%3Asilicon+valley)

movie:
Find information about a speci c movie. Also nds movie showtimes if the movie is currently showing near
you.

Example: movie:steve jobs (https://www.google.com/search?q=movie%3Asteve+jobs)

in
Convert one unit to another. Works with currencies, weights, temperatures, etc.

Example: $329 in GBP (https://www.google.com/search?q=%24329+in+GBP)

source:
Find news results from a certain source in Google News.

Example: apple source:the_verge (https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+source%3Athe_verge&tbm=nws)

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_
Not exactly a search operator, but acts as a wildcard for Google Autocomplete.

Example: apple CEO _ jobs

Here are the ones that are hit and miss, according to my testing:

#..#
Search for a range of numbers. In the example below, searches related to “WWDC videos” are returned for the
years 2010–2014, but not for 2015 and beyond.

Example: wwdc video 2010..2014 (https://www.google.com/search?q=wwdc+video+2010..2014)

inanchor:
Find pages that are being linked to with speci c anchor text. For this example, any results with inbound links
containing either “apple” or “iphone” in the anchor text will be returned.

Example: inanchor:apple iphone (https://www.google.com/search?q=inanchor%3Aapple+iphone)

allinanchor:
Similar to “inanchor,” but only results containing all of the speci ed words in the inbound anchor text will be
returned.

Example: allinanchor:apple iphone (https://www.google.com/search?q=allinanchor%3Aapple+iphone)

blogurl:
Find blog URLs under a speci c domain. This was used in Google blog search, but I’ve found it does return
some results in regular search.

Example: blogurl:microsoft.com (https://www.google.com/search?q=blogurl%3Amicrosoft.com)

SIDENOTE. Google blog search discontinued in 2011

loc:placename
Find results from a given area.

Example: loc:”san francisco” apple (https://www.google.com/search?q=loc%3A%22san+francisco%22+apple)

SIDENOTE. Not of cially deprecated, but results are inconsistent.

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location:
Find news from a certain location in Google News.

Example: loc:”san francisco” apple (https://www.google.com/search?q=loc%3A%22san+francisco%22+apple)

SIDENOTE. Not of cially deprecated, but results are inconsistent.

Here are the Google search operators that have been discontinued and no longer work.

+
Force an exact‐match search on a single word or phrase.

Example: jobs +apple (https://www.google.com/search?q=jobs+%2Bapple)

SIDENOTE. You can do the same thing by using double quotes around your search.

~
Include synonyms. Doesn’t work, because Google now includes synonyms by default. (Hint: Use double quotes
to exclude synonyms.)

Example: ~apple (https://www.google.com/search?q=~apple)

inpostauthor:
Find blog posts written by a speci c author. This only worked in Google Blog search, not regular Google
search.

Example: inpostauthor:”steve jobs”

SIDENOTE. Google blog search was discontinued in 2011.

allinpostauthor:
Similar to “inpostauthor,” but removes the need for quotes (if you want to search for a speci c author,
including surname.)

Example: allinpostauthor:steve jobs

inposttitle:
Find blog posts with speci c words in the title. No longer works, as this operator was unique to the
discontinued Google blog search.

Example:  197
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link:
Find pages linking to a speci c domain or URL. Google killed this operator in 2017, but it does still show some
results—they likely aren’t particularly accurate though. (Deprecated in 2017
(https://searchengineland.com/google-of cially-killed-off-link-command-267454))

Example: link:apple.com (https://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Aapple.com)

info:
Find information about a speci c page, including the most recent cache, similar pages, etc. (Deprecated in 2017
(https://searchengineland.com/google-changes-info-command-search-operator-dropping-useful-links-286422)).
Note: The id:  operator can also be used—the results are identical.

SIDENOTE. Although the original functionality of this operator is deprecated, it is still useful for nding the canonical, indexed
version of a URL. Thanks to @glenngabe (https://twitter.com/glenngabe) for pointing this one one!

Example: info:apple.com (https://www.google.com/search?q=info%3Aapple.com) / id:apple.com

(https://www.google.com/search?q=id%3Aapple.com)

daterange:
Find results from a certain date range. Uses the Julian date format
(http://www.longpelaexpertise.com/toolsJulian.php), for some reason.

Example: daterange:11278–13278 (https://www.google.com/search?q=steve+jobs+daterange%3A11278-13278)

SIDENOTE. Not of cially deprecated, but doesn’t seem to work.

phonebook:
Find someone’s phone number. (Deprecated in 2010 (https://searchengineland.com/google-drops-phonebook-
search-operator-56173))

Example: phonebook:tim cook (https://www.google.com/search?q=phonebook%3Atim+cook)

#
Searches #hashtags. Introduced for Google+; now deprecated.

Example: #apple (https://www.google.com/search?q=%23apple)

15 Actionable Ways to Use Google Search Operators

Now 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 ef ciently.

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So don’t be afraid to play around and deviate from the examples below. You might just discover something
new.

BORED OF READING?

Check out 9 actionable Google search operator tips in Sam Oh’s video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=yWLD9139Ipc).

How to Google with Advanced Search Operators (…

Let’s go!

1. Find indexation errors

Google indexation errors exist for most sites.

It could be that a page that should be indexed, isn’t. Or vice‐versa.

Let’s use the site:  operator to see how many pages Google has indexed for ahrefs.com.

~1,040.

SIDENOTE. Google only gives a rough approximation (https://searchengineland.com/what-you-can-learn-from-googles-site-

operator-14052) when using this operator. For the full picture, check Google Search Console
(https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en).
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But how many of these pages are blog posts?

Let’s nd out.

~249. That’s roughly ¼.

I know Ahrefs blog inside out, so I know this is higher than the number of posts we have.

Let’s investigate further.

OK, so it seems that a few odd pages are being indexed.

(This page isn’t even live—it’s a 404)

Such pages should be removed from the SERPs by noindexing them

(https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710?hl=en).

Let’s also narrow the search to subdomains and see what we nd.

SIDENOTE. Here, we’re using the wildcard (*) operator to nd all subdomains belonging to the domain, combined with the
exclusion operator (-) to exclude regular www results.

~731 results.

Here’s a page residing on a subdomain that de nitely shouldn’t be indexed. It gives a 404 error for a start.

Here are a few other ways to uncover indexation errors with Google operators:

site:yourblog.com/category  — nd WordPress blog category pages;

site:yourblog.com inurl:tag — nd WordPress “tag” pages.

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2. Find non‐secure pages (non‐https)

HTTPs is a must these days, especially for ecommerce sites (https://ahrefs.com/blog/ecommerce-seo/).

But did you know that you can nd unsecure pages with the site: operator?

Let’s try it for asos.com.

Oh my, ~2.47M unsecure pages.

It looks like ASAS don’t currently use SSL—unbelievable for such a large site.

SIDENOTE. Don’t worry, Asos customers—their checkout pages are secure

But here’s another crazy thing:

ASOS is accessible at both the https and http versions.

And we learned all that from a simple site:  search!

SIDENOTE. I’ve noticed that sometimes, when using this tactic, pages will be indexed without the https. But when you click‐
through, you will be directed to the https version. So don’t assume that your pages are unsecure just because they appear as such
in Google’s index. Always click a few of them to double‐check.

F U RT H E R R E A D I N G

We Analyzed the HTTPS Settings of 10,000 Domains and How It Affects Their SEO — Here’s What We Learned
(https://ahrefs.com/blog/ssl/)
HTTP vs. HTTPS for SEO: What You Need to Know to Stay in Google’s Good Graces
(https://ahrefs.com/blog/http-vs-https-for-seo/)

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3. Find duplicate content issues

Duplicate content = bad.

Here’s a pair of Abercrombie and Fitch jeans from ASOS (http://www.asos.com/abercrombie-

tch/abercrombie- tch-slim- t-jeans-in-destroyed-black-wash/prd/8459420?
clr=black&SearchQuery=&cid=4208&gridcolumn=1&gridrow=1&gridsize=4&pge=1&pgesize=72&totalstyles=1)
with this brand description:

With third‐party brand descriptions like this, they’re often duplicated on other sites.

But rst, I’m wondering how many times this copy appears on asos.com.

~4.2K.

Now I’m wondering if this copy is even unique to ASOS.

Let’s check.

No, it isn’t.

That’s 15 other sites with this exact same copy—i.e., duplicate content.

Sometimes duplicate content issues can arise from similar product pages, too.

For example, similar or identical products with different quantity counts.

Here’s an example from ASOS:

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You can see that—quantities aside—all of these product pages are the same.

But duplicate content isn’t only a problem for ecommerce sites.

If you have a blog, then people could be stealing and republishing your content without attribution.

Let’s see if anyone has stolen and republished our list of SEO tips (https://ahrefs.com/blog/seo-tips/).

~17 results.

SIDENOTE. You’ll notice that I excluded ahrefs.com from the results using the exclusion (-) operator—this ensures that the
original doesn’t appear in the search results. I also excluded the word “pinterest.” This was because I saw a lot of Pinterest results
for this search, which aren’t really relevant to what we’re looking for. I could have excluded just pinterest.com (-pinterest.com),
but as Pinterest has many ccTLDs, this didn’t really help things. Excluding the word “pinterest” was the best way to clean up the
results.

Most of these are probably syndicated content.

Still, it’s worth checking these out to make sure that they do link back to you.

FIND STOLEN CONTENT I N SE CON D S

Content Explorer (https://ahrefs.com/content-explorer) > In title > enter the title of your page/post > exclude your own
site

You will then see any pages (from our database of 900M+ pieces of content) with the same title as your page/post.

In this instance, there are 5 results.

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Next, enter your domain under “Highlight unlinked domains.”

This will highlight any sites that don’t link back to you.

You can then reach out to those sites and request the addition of a source link.

FYI, this lter actually looks for links on a domain‐level rather than a page‐level. It is, therefore, possible that the
site could be linking to you from another page, rather than the page in question.

4. Find odd les on your domain (that you may have forgotten about)
Keeping track of everything on your website can be dif cult.

(This is especially true for big sites.)

For this reason, it’s easy to forget about old les you may have uploaded.

PDF les; Word documents; Powerpoint presentations; text les; etc.

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

SIDENOTE. Remember, you can also use the ext:  operator—it does the same thing.

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I’ve never seen that piece of content before. Have you?

But we can extend this further than just PDF les.

By combining a few operators, it’s possible to return results for all supported le types at once.

SIDENOTE. The letype operator does also support things like .asp, .php, .html, etc.

It’s important to delete or noindex these if you’d prefer people didn’t come across them.

5. Find guest post opportunities

Guest post opportunities… there are TONS of ways to nd them, such as:

But you already knew about that method, right!?

SIDENOTE. For those who haven’t seen this one before, it uncovers so‐called “write for us” pages in your niche—the pages many
sites create when they’re actively seeking guest contributions.

So let’s get more creative.

First off: don’t limit yourself to “write for us.”

You can also use:

“become a contributor"
“contribute to”
“write for me” (yep—there are solo bloggers seeking guest posts, too!)
“guest post guidelines”
inurl:guest-post
inurl:guest-contributor-guidelines
etc.

But here’s a cool tip most people miss:

You can search for many of these at once.

SIDENOTE. Did you notice I’m using the pipe (“|”) operator instead of “OR” this time? Remember, it does the same thing.
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You can even search for multiple footprints AND multiple keywords.

Looking for opportunities in a speci c country?

Just add a site:.tld  operator.

Here’s another method:

If you know of a serial guest blogger in your niche, try this:

This will nd every site that person has written for.

SIDENOTE. Don’t forget to exclude their site to keep the results clean!

HOW TO FIND EVEN MOR E AUTHOR GUE ST POS TS

Content Explorer (https://ahrefs.com/content-explorer) > author search > exclude their site(s)

For this example, let’s use our very own Tim Soulo (https://ahrefs.com/tim).

BOOM. 17 results. All of which are probably guest posts.

For reference, here’s the exact search I entered into Content Explorer:

author:”tim soulo” -site:ahrefs.com -site:bloggerjet.com

Basically, this searches for posts by Tim Soulo. But it also excludes posts from ahrefs.com and bloggerjet.com
(Tim’s personal blog).

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Note. Sometimes you will nd a few false positives in there. It depends on how common the persons name
happens to be.

But don’t stop there:

You can also use Content Explorer to nd sites in your niche that have never linked to you.

Content Explorer > enter a topic > one article per domain > highlight unlinked domains

Here’s one of the unlinked domains I found for ahrefs.com:

This means marketingprofs.com has never linked to us.

Now, this search doesn’t tell us whether or not they have a “write for us” page. But it doesn’t really matter. The
truth is that most sites are usually happy to accept guest posts if you can offer them “quality” content. It would,
therefore, de nitely be worth reaching out and “pitching” such sites.

Another bene t of using Content Explorer (https://ahrefs.com/content-explorer) is that you can see stats for each
page, including:
# of RDs;
DR;
Organic traf c estimation;
Social shares;
Etc.

You can also export the results easily.

Finally, if you’re wondering whether a speci c site accepts guest posts or not, try this:

SIDENOTE. You could add even more searches—e.g., “this is a guest article”—to the list of searches included within the
parentheses. I kept this simple for demonstration purposes.

6. Find resource page opportunities

“Resource”pages
197 round‐up the best resources
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Here’s what a so‐called “resource” page looks like:

All of those links you see = links to resources on other sites.

(Ironically—given the subject nature of that particular page—a lot of those links are broken)

F U RT H E R R E A D I N G

A Simple (But Complete) Guide to Broken Link Building (https://ahrefs.com/blog/broken-link-building/)

How to Find and Fix Broken Links (to Reclaim Valuable “Link Juice”) (https://ahrefs.com/blog/ x-broken-links/)

So if you have a cool resource on your site, you can:

1. nd relevant “resource” pages;
2. pitch your resource for inclusion

Here’s one way to nd them:

But that can return a lot of junk.

Here’s a cool way to narrow it down:

Or narrow it down even further with:

SIDENOTE. Using allintitle: here ensures that the title tag contains the words “ tness” AND “resources,” and also a number
 197
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A NOTE ABOUT THE #. .# OPE RATOR

I know what you’re thinking:

Why not use the #..#  operator instead of that long sequence of numbers.

Good point!

Let’s try it:

Confused? Here’s the deal:

This operator doesn’t play nicely with most other operators.

Nor does it seem to work a lot of the time anyway—it’s de nitely hit and miss.

So I recommend using a sequence of numbers separated by “OR” or the pipe (“|”) operator.

It’s a bit of a hassle, but it works.

7. Find sites that feature infographics… so you can pitch YOURS

Infographics get a bad rap.

Most likely, this is because a lot of people create low‐quality, cheap infographics that serve no real purpose…
other than to “attract links.”

But infographics aren’t always bad.

Here’s the general strategy for infographics:

1. create infographic
2. pitch infographic
3. get featured, get link (and PR!)

But who should you pitch your infographic to?

Just any old sites in your niche?

NO.

You should pitch to sites that are actually likely to want to feature your infographic.

The best way to do this is to nd sites that have featured infographics before.

Here’s how:
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SIDENOTE. It can also be worth searching within a recent date range—e.g., the past 3 months. If a site featured an infographic
two years ago, that doesn’t necessarily mean they still care about infographics. Whereas if a site featured an infographic in the
past few months, chances are they still regularly feature them. But as the “daterange:” operator no longer seems to work, you’ll
have to do this using the in‐built lter in Google search.

But again, this can kick back some serious junk.

So here’s a quick trick:

1. use the above search to nd a good, relevant infographic (i.e., well‐designed, etc.)
2. search for that speci c infographic

Here’s an example:

This found ~2 results from the last 3 months. And 450+ all‐time results.

Do this for a handful of infographics and you’ll have a good list of prospects.

NOT GET TING GREAT RESULTS FROM GOOGLE ? TRY THI S.

Have you ever noticed that when an infographic is embedded on a site, the site owner will usually include the
word “infographic” in square brackets in the title tag?

Example:

Unfortunately, Google search ignores square brackets (even if they’re in quotes).

But Content Explorer doesn’t.

Content Explorer (https://ahrefs.com/content-explorer) > search query > “AND [infographic]”

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As you can see, you can also use advanced operators in CE to search for multiple terms at once. The search above
nds results containing “SEO,” “keyword research,” or “link building” in the title tag, plus “[infographic].”

You can export these easily (with all associated metrics), too.

F U RT H E R R E A D I N G

The Visual Format You Should be Using for Link Building (No, It’s NOT Infographics)
(https://ahrefs.com/blog/visual-link-building/)
6 Linkable Asset Types (And EXACTLY How to Earn Links With Them) (https://ahrefs.com/blog/linkable-assets/)
Deconstructing Linkbait: How to Create Content That Attracts Backlinks (https://ahrefs.com/blog/link-bait/)

8. Find more link prospects… AND check how relevant they really are
Let’s assume you’ve found a site that you want a link from.

It’s been manually vetted for relevance… and all looks good.

Here’s how to nd a list of similar sites or pages:

This returned ~49 results—all of which were similar sites.

SIDENOTE. In the example above, we’re looking for similar sites to Ahrefs’ blog—not Ahrefs as a whole.

WANT TO DO THE SAME FOR SP E CI FI C PAGE S? NO P RO B LE M

Let’s try our link building guide (https://ahrefs.com/blog/link-building/).

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That’s ~45 results, all of which are very similar.

Here’s one of the results: yoast.com/seo-blog

I’m quite familiar with Yoast, so I know it’s a relevant site/prospect.

But let’s assume that I know nothing about this site, how could I quickly vet this prospect?

Here’s how:

1. do a site:domain.com  search, and note down the number of results;

2. do a  site:domain.com [niche]  search, then also note down the number of results;
3. divide the second number by the rst—if it’s above 0.5, it’s a good, relevant prospect; if it’s above 0.75, it’s
a super‐relevant prospect.

Let’s try this with yoast.com.

Here’s the number of results for a simple site:  search:

And site: [niche] :

So that’s 3,950 / 3,330 = ~0.84.

(Remember, >0.75 translates to a very relevant prospect, usually)

Now let’s try the same for a site that I know to be irrelevant: greatist.com.

Number of results for site:greatist.com  search: ~18,000

Number of results for site:greatist.com SEO  search: ~7

(18,000 / 7
= 197
~0.0004 = a totally irrelevant site)
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IMPORTANT! This is a great way to quick eliminate highly‐irrelevant tactics, but it’s not foolproof—you will
sometimes get strange or unenlightening results. I also want to stress that it’s certainly no replacement for
manually checking a potential prospect’s website. You should ALWAYS thoroughly check a prospects site
before reaching out to them. Failure to do that = SPAMMING (https://ahrefs.com/blog/outreach/).

HERE’S ANOTHER WAY TO F I N D SI MI L AR D OM A I N S/P RO SP E CTS…

Site Explorer (https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer) > relevant domain > Competing Domains

For example, let’s assume I was looking for more SEO‐related link prospects.

I could enter ahrefs.com/blog into Site Explorer.

Then check the Competing Domains.

This will reveal domains competing for the same keywords.

9. Find social pro les for outreach prospects

Got someone in mind that you want to reach out to?

Try this trick to nd their contact details:

SIDENOTE. You NEED to know their name for this one. This is usually quite easy to nd on most websites—it’s just the contact
details that can be somewhat elusive.

Here are the top 4 results:

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BINGO.

You can then contact them directly via social media.

Or use some of the tips from steps #4 and #6 in this article (https://ahrefs.com/blog/ nd-email-address/) to
hunt down an email address.

F U RT H E R R E A D I N G

9 Actionable Ways To Find Anyone’s Email Address [Updated for 2018] (https://ahrefs.com/blog/ nd-email-
address/)
11 Ways to Find ANY Personal Email Address (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZFMRl3Yqwc)

10. Find internal linking opportunities

Internal links are important.

They help visitors to nd their way around your site.

And they also bring SEO bene ts (when used wisely (https://ahrefs.com/blog/technical-seo/)).

But you need to make sure that you’re ONLY adding internal links where relevant.

Let’s say that you just published a big list of SEO tips (https://ahrefs.com/blog/seo-tips/).

Wouldn’t it be cool to add an internal link to that post from any other posts where you talk about SEO tips?

De nitely. 197  681  

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It’s just that nding relevant places to add such links can be dif cult—especially with big sites.

So here’s a quick trick:

For those of you who still haven’t gotten the hang of search operators, here’s what this does:
1. Restricts the search to a speci c site;
2. Excludes the page/post that you want to build internal links to;
3. Looks for a certain word or phrase in the text.

Here’s one opportunity I found with this operator:

It took me all of ~3 seconds to nd this.

11. Find PR opportunities by nding competitor mentions

Here’s a page that mentions a competitor of ours—Moz.

Found using this advanced search:

But why no mention of Ahrefs?

Using site:  and intext: , I can see that this site has mentioned us a couple of times before.

But they haven’t written any posts dedicated to our toolset, as they have with Moz.

This presents an opportunity.

Reach out, build a relationship, then perhaps they may write about Ahrefs.

Here’s another
 197cool search that can be used
681to nd competitor reviews:
 
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SIDENOTE. Because we’re using “allintitle” rather than “intitle,” this will match only results with both the word “review” and one
of our competitors in the title tag.

You can build relationships with these people and get them to review your product/service too.

GO EVEN FURTHER WITH CON TE N T E XP LOR E R

You can also use the “In title” search in Content Explorer to nd competitor reviews.

I tried this for Ahrefs and found 795 results.

For clarity, here’s the exact search I used:

review AND (moz OR semrush OR majestic) -site:moz.com -site:semrush.com -site:majestic.com

But you can go even further by highlighting unlinked mentions.

This highlights the sites that have never linked to you before, so you can then prioritise them.

Here’s one site that has never linked to Ahrefs, yet has reviewed our competitor:

You can see that it’s a Domain Rating (DR) 79 website, so it would be well worth getting a mention on this site.

Here’s another cool tip:

Google’s daterange:  operator is now deprecated. But you can still add a time period lter to nd recent
competitor mentions.

Just use the inbuilt lter.

Tools > Any time > select time period

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Looks like ~34 reviews of our competitors were published in the past month.

WANT ALERTS FOR COM PETI TOR ME N TI ONS I N RE AL ‐ TI ME ? D O THI S.

Alerts (https://ahrefs.com/alerts) > Mentions > Add alert

Enter the name of your competitor… or any search query you like.

Choose a mode (either “in title” or “everywhere”), add your blocked domains, then add a recipient.

Set your internal to real‐time (or whatever interval you prefer).

Hit “Save.”

You will now receive an email whenever your competitors are mentioned online.

12. Find sponsored post opportunities

Sponsored posts are paid‐for posts promoting your brand, product or service.

These are NOT link building opportunities.

Google’s guidelines (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en) states the following;

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Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain
links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing
about it and including a link

This is why you should ALWAYS nofollow links in sponsored posts.

But the true value of a sponsored post doesn’t come down to links anyway.

It comes down to PR—i.e., getting your brand in front of the right people.

Here’s one way to nd sponsored post opportunities using Google search operators:

~151 results. Not bad.

Here are a few other operator combinations to use:

[niche] intext:”this is a sponsored post by”
[niche] intext:”this post was sponsored by”
[niche] intitle:”sponsored post”
[niche] intitle:”sponsored post archives” inurl:”category/sponsored-post”
“sponsored” AROUND(3) “post”

SIDENOTE. The examples above are exactly that—examples. There are almost certainly other footprints you can use to nd such
posts. Don’t be afraid to try other ideas.

WANT TO KNOW HOW MUCH TRA FFI C E ACH OF THE SE SI TE S GE T? D O THI S.

Use this Chrome bookmarklet (https://www.chrisains.com/seo-tools/extract-urls-from-web-serps/) to extract the

Google search results.

Batch Analysis (https://ahrefs.com/batch-analysis) > paste the URLs > select “domain/*” mode > sort by organic search
traf c

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Now you have a list of the sites with the most traf c, which are usually the best opportunities.

13. Find Q+A threads related to your content

Forums and Q+A sites are great for promoting content.

SIDENOTE. Promoting != spamming. Don’t join such sites just to add your links. Provide value and drop the occasional relevant
link in there in the process.

One site that comes to mind is Quora.

Quora allow you to drop relevant links throughout your answers.

an answer on Quora with a link to an SEO blog.

It’s true that these links are nofollowed.

But we’re not trying to build links here—this is about PR!

Here’s one way to nd relevant threads:

Don’t limit yourself to Quora, though.

This can be done with any forum or Q+A site.

Here’s the same search for Warrior Forum:

I also know that Warrior Forum has a search engine optimization category.

Every thread in this category has “.com/search‐engine‐optimization/” in the URL.

So I could re ne my search even further with the inurl: operator.

I’ve found that using search operators like this allows you to search forum threads with more granularity than
most on‐site searches.

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HERE’S ANOTHER COOL TR I CK…

Site Explorer (https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer) > quora.com > Organic Keywords > search for a niche‐relevant keyword

You should now see relevant Quora threads sorted by estimated monthly organic traf c.

Answering such threads can lead to a nice trickle of referral traf c.

14. Find how often your competitors are publishing new content
Most blogs reside in a subfolder or on a subdomain.

Examples:

ahrefs.com/blog (https://ahrefs.com/blog/)
blog.hubspot.com
blog.kissmetrics.com

This makes it easy to check how regularly competitors are publishing new content.

Let’s try this for one of our competitors—SEMrush.

Looks like they have ~4.5K blog posts.

But this isn’t accurate. It includes multi‐language versions of the blog, which reside on subdomains.

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Let’s lter these out.

That’s more like it. ~2.2K blog posts.

Now we know our competitor (SEMrush) has ~2.2K blog posts in total.

Let’s see how many they published in the last month.

Because the daterange: operator no longer works, we’ll instead use Google’s inbuilt lter.

Tools > Any time > select time period

SIDENOTE. Any date range is possible here. Just select “custom.”

~29 blog posts. Interesting.

FYI, that’s ~4x faster than we publish new posts. And they have ~15X more posts than us in total.

But we still get more traf c… with ~2x the value, might I add

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Quality over quantity (https://ahrefs.com/blog/increase-blog-traf c/), right!?

You can also use the site: operator combined with a search query to see how much content a competitor has
published on a certain topic.

15. Find sites linking to competitors

Competitors getting links?

What if you could also have them?

Google’s link:  operator was of cially deprecated in 2017.

But I’ve found that it does still return some results.

SIDENOTE. When doing this, always make sure to exclude your competitors site using the “site” operator. If you don’t, you’ll also
see their internal links.

~900K links.

WANT TO SEE EVEN MORE LIN KS ?

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Google’s data is heavily sampled.

It likely isn’t too accurate either.

Site Explorer (https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer) can provide a much fuller picture of your competitor’s backlink
pro le.

~1.5 million backlinks.

That’s a lot more than Google showed us.

This is yet another instance where the time period lter can be useful.

Filtering by the last month, I can see that Moz has gained 18K+ new backlinks.

Pretty useful. But this also illustrates how inaccurate this data can be.

Site Explorer picked up 35K+ links for this same period.

That’s almost DOUBLE!

F U RT H E R R E A D I N G

7 Actionable Ways to Loot Your Competitors’ Backlinks (https://ahrefs.com/blog/get-competitors-backlinks/)

The Ultimate Guide to Reverse Engineering Your Competitor’s Backlinks (https://ahrefs.com/blog/the-ultimate-
guide-to-reverse-engineering-your-competitors-backlinks/)

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Final Thoughts
Google advanced search operators are insanely 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 nd myself
using site: , intitle: , intext: , and inurl:  on an almost daily basis. Yet I rarely use AROUND(X) ,
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.

Joshua Hardwick (https://ahrefs.com/blog/author/joshua-hardwick/)

Head of Content @ Ahrefs (or, in plain English, I'm the guy responsible for ensuring that every blog post we publish is EPIC). Founder @
The SEO Project (http://www.theseoproject.org).

 (http://www.theseoproject.org/)  (https://twitter.com/JoshuaCHardwick)
 (https://plus.google.com/u/0/114637890331409299758?rel=author)

Article stats
Twitter 197

Facebook 681

Referring domains 99

Data from Content Explorer tool.

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explorer/overview/v4/all/1/score_desc?
topic=https%3A%2F%2Fptop.only.wip.la%3A443%2Fhttps%2Fahrefs.com%2Fblog%2Fgoogle-
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Mat Fidge • 6 months ago

Wow Joshua - nothing less than comprehensive and really thorough. Thanks a bunch.

There is one further use that I am aware of for search operators. It helps with checking citations for Local SEO and can also
unearth some gems of citation sources your competitors have but you dont.

I go into a bit more detail about this in my Local SEO post here - http://www.keystonecopy.co.... - but in essence here's what
you need to do.

Type in the following:

“Your Business name” AND “Postcode“ -site:http://www.yoursite.com

or try
“Your Business name” AND “Former postcode -“site:http://www.yoursite.com

These two searches should pull up plenty of listings for you to check without the added clutter of your own website. If your
NAP is incorrect on any you can visit the
directory, claim your listing, change it and verify it (by email, post
or phone).

Here’s one more tactic you can use

see more

1△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Joshua Hardwick > Mat Fidge • 6 months ago

Oh, that's a cool tip! I'll upvote this comment for now and hopefully it will rise to the tip, but I may add this to the post
at some point. :)

Btw, could this also work for "Your business name" AND "phone number" ?
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Mat Fidge > Joshua Hardwick • 6 months ago

Sure - it's just that the postcode is the least likely thing to be incorrect in citation listings.
1△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Joshua Hardwick > Mat Fidge • 6 months ago

got it! thanks!
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Mobcure • 25 days ago

I want to search articles that are more than 600 words can anyone suggest me some google operator for this. Thanx in
advance.

Dilshad Saifi
https://mobcure.com/
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Neal Pallotta • a month ago

"search term" for exact match seems to be hit and miss at best now.

... Damnit.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

MadMark43 • 3 months ago

Nice article. I have several questions unrelated to SEO, but would be generally useful. The first question: Is there a way to
 197
search for a target by position? I wantto681  line begins with "foo". Also, can 
select messages where the subject I select based
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upon a word being at the end of the line? I want all messages where the line ends with "bar". To have fun I could look up
messages that begin with "foo" AND end with "bar". A final capability would be to use wildcards; like words that begin with
"At" followed by any character(s). All messages with a subject line that includes any word that contains "at" followed by any
character(s); "at*" If you don't know the answer, can you point me towards someone who might? Thanks for any help you
can give me..
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ansonchew • 4 months ago

Thanks, great post. Can i ask about the use of brackets as a search operator - for example if I type in the following into
google

(fraud OR misrepresentation) andrew johnson

It will basically turn up results which have (1) EITHER fraud AND/OR misrepresentation AND (2) andrew AND (3) johnson?

Thank you
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Ridwan • 4 months ago

I REALLY LOVE THIS
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Greg Ichshenko • 5 months ago

A handy list of Google search operators in the first place! In fact, I did not know I needed to know that; I found and learned
advanced search query operators for the first time. When the keyword that is typed is not clear, this can be an ideal choice,
for sure. So, no longer need to worry or get confused with something else; it is the best solution.
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Ramesh Raju • 5 months ago

Very Nice Post there is A lot of information in it ,the Search operators have been explained incredibly well
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Tomislav • 5 months ago

Another use case would be to check indexed parameter URLs (on a site you don't have GSC access to), by using HTML-
encoded version of signs like ? or &.
Example would be:
site:mysite.com inurl:%3F
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Hitesh Sahni • 5 months ago

Hey Joshua, thanks for doing the research and finding operators that still work. Learning you can use multiple footprints and
multiple keywords at once is mind blowing! This will save so much time! Also, the infographic operators will also come in
handy.
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Dale Davies • 5 months ago

Love how you've integrated Content Explorer into your examples.

Would love to know how well those examples have helped conversion rates for new trials (obviously don't expect you to
say!)
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Hızır Temizlik • 5 months ago

The incredible search operators have explained well how you will use them. Thank you
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Ricardo Sala • 5 months ago

I don't get it...most of them (the most interesting ones) are deprecated...why are they still in the list???
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Joshua Hardwick > Ricardo Sala • 5 months ago

actually, fewer than 1/4 of the operators on this list are officially deprecated, and pretty much all the actionable tips I
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shared use the working operators.
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I included the deprecated ones so people know they no longer work!

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Patrick F • 5 months ago

Very nice post!
Actually learned a lot from it :D
Note: The (in) operator can also be typed as (to)
Example: 300$ to EUR
I think it does the same thing, just thought i mention it if someone prefer it :)
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Marina Nic • 6 months ago

Is it just me or is filetype:png, filetype:jpg and any other image file I tried searching not returning results at the moment?
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Joshua Hardwick > Marina Nic • 6 months ago

I don't think jpegs or pngs usually get indexed in regular Google search. Try using it in Google image search :)
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Akash Srivastava • 6 months ago

Amazing search operators, you explained well how to use them.
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Joshua Hardwick > Akash Srivastava • 6 months ago

Thanks, Akash! :)
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Madhu Suresh Nani • 6 months ago

Hi Joshua,

I think there is a correction in "inurl" search operator like "in the title" must be changed to "in the url"

Very helpful and handful search operators.

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Joshua Hardwick > Madhu Suresh Nani • 6 months ago

Oops. Thanks! Fixed :)
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subhuti 2 • 6 months ago

Another course I took made use of one of these and I always wondered if there is one, there must be a lot of others. Thanks
for putting them all in one placel
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Joshua Hardwick > subhuti 2 • 6 months ago

No worries. Glad you found it useful :)
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Adnan • 6 months ago

Hi Joshua,
Exactly, this is the list that I'm looking for. I really need it.
Thank you soo much. ☺
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py

Joshua Hardwick > Adnan • 6 months ago

Cool! :) Let me know if you spot any other cool uses for search operators.
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Hiten Parmar • 6 months ago

Hi Joshua. Thanks for such a detailed and knowledge-rich article on search operators. I will definitely learn a lot of new
things and experiment them too. Thanks once again and keep sharing such rich article we love it...:)
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Joshua Hardwick > Hiten Parmar • 6 months ago

No problem, Hiten! Glad you found it useful! :)
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