46 Advanced search commands for Google search operators
By Chima Mmeje — April 23, 2025.
We’ve simplified complex commands into clear, actionable insights, ensuring you can apply them immediately. Each operator includes:
- What it does: A concise explanation.
- Working status: Is the operator still functional?
- Example: Ready-to-use search strings for real-world tasks.
List of working Google search operators
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 textsearches.
| Search operator | What it does | Example |
| ” “ | Forces exact-match searches. | “nikola tesla” |
| OR | Searches for results related to X or Y, not necessarily both. | tesla OR edison |
| | | Functions identically to “OR.” | tesla | edison |
| () | Groups operators to control the order of execution. | (tesla OR edison) alternating current |
| – | Excludes terms from search results. | tesla -motors |
| * | Acts as a wildcard for matching any word or phrase. | tesla “rock * roll” |
| #..# | Searches within a range of numbers. | tesla announcement 2015..2017 |
| $ | Searches for specific prices. | tesla deposit $1000 |
| € | Searches for prices in euros. | €9.99 lunch deals |
| in | Converts units. | 250 kph in mph |
| define: | Searches for the definition of a word or phrase. | define:telescope |
| filetype: | Searches for specific types of files. | “tesla announcements” filetype:pdf |
| ext: | Same as filetype, searching for specific file extensions. | powershell ext:pdf |
| site: | Searches within a specific website. | site:goodwill.org |
| intitle: | Searches only within page titles. | intitle:”tesla vs edison” |
| allintitle: | Searches for every term following “allintitle” within page titles. | allintitle: tesla vs edison |
| inurl: | Looks for words or phrases within a URL. | tesla announcements inurl:2024 |
| allinurl: | Searches the URL for every term following “allinurl.” | allinurl: amazon field-keywords nikon |
| intext: | Searches for words or phrases within the body text of a document. | intext:”orbi vs eero vs google wifi” |
| allintext: | Searches the body text for every term following “allintext.” | allintext: orbi eero google wifi |
| AROUND(X) | Finds terms within X words of each other in a text. | tesla AROUND(3) edison |
| weather: | Searches for the weather in a specified location. | weather:New Jersey |
| stocks: | Searches for stock information using a ticker symbol. | stocks:nvidia |
| map: | Forces Google to show map results for a location. | map:Manhattan |
| movie: | Searches for information about a specific movie. | movie:Oppenheimer |
| source: | Searches for news from a specific source. | deepseek source:cnn |
| before: | Searches for results before a specific date. | Microsoft before:2010-05-08 |
| after: | Searches for results after a specific date. | Microsoft after:2010-05-08 |
List of unreliable search operators
| Search operator | What it does | Example |
| #..# | Searches within a range of numbers. | logitech keyboard $50..$60 |
| inanchor: | Searches for pages with backlinks containing specific anchor text. | inanchor:tesla announcements |
| allinanchor: | Searches for pages with backlinks containing multiple words in their anchor text. | allinanchor: tesla announcements |
| daterange: | Searches for results from a specific date range. It can be inconsistent and requires Julian dates. | tesla announcements daterange:2457663-2457754 |
| loc: | Finds results from a specified area. | loc:”Silicon Valley” Microsoft |
| location: | Finds news from a specific location. | location:”London” Salesforce |
| AROUND(X) | Find terms within X words of each other in a text. | tesla AROUND(3) edison |
| related: | Find sites related to a specified domain. | related:nytimes.com |
List of deprecated search operators dropped by Google
| Search operator | What it does | Example |
| ~ | Include synonyms. It seems to be unreliable, and synonym inclusion is the default now. Deprecated in 2013 | ~cars |
| “+” | Force exact match on a single phrase. Deprecated with the launch of Google+. Dropped in 2011 | +cars |
| inpostauthor: | Searches for posts by a specific author. Deprecated in 2013 | inpostauthor:”Tom Capper” |
| allinpostauthor: | Same as inpostauthor, but it applies to all terms following it. | allinpostauthor:Tom Capper |
| inposttitle: | Searches for posts with specific words in the title. | inposttitle:apple iphone |
| link: | Searches for pages linking to a specific URL or domain. | link:microsoft.com |
| info: | Searches for information about a specific page or website. Deprecated in 2017 | info:Amazon.com |
| id: | Same as info, searches for information about a specific page. | id:openai.com |
| phonebook: | Searches for someone’s phone number. Deprecated in 2010 | phonebook:Jeff Bezos |
| # | Searches for hashtags on the discontinued Google+. Deprecated with the sunsetting of Google+ | #NFL |
| cache: | Find the most recent cache of a webpage. Discontinued in 2024 | cache:microsoft.com |