How Can You Use Google Search Operators in SEO?
You can make your tasks much faster with Google’s search operators and use them to support your SEO efforts. In this article, I wanted to explain how search operators can be used.
What are Google Search Operators and What Do They Do?
Google search operators are operators used to obtain specific results in Google searches and refine those results further.
Search operators help you narrow down search results and can be useful at every stage, from content research to technical SEO audits. I recommend using them to reach exactly the results you are looking for. They can also be used with search engines other than Google.
You can identify pages indexed by Google that are not marked as secure with HTTPS as shown below and analyze them without needing an additional SEO crawler tool.
Why Use Google Advanced Search Operators?
Hundreds of thousands of different terms are searched on Google every day, and getting the result we want can become more difficult day by day. You can use search operators to avoid getting lost among these results and find the content you are looking for.
How to Use Google Search Operators?
You can use search operators in the Google search box just as you would search for regular keywords:
When refining searches with operators, you need to be careful about spaces between operators. In other words, site:zeo.org and site: zeo.org will not return the same results.
Google Search Operators List
Here is a list of the operators I consider important and that you can use in SEO:
- “your search term”: Used for exact-match results.
- -: Lets you exclude the terms you specify.
- OR: Used to get results for either of two terms.
- *: Acts as a wildcard and matches words or phrases.
- AND: Shows queries containing two different terms, such as (SEO AND ADS).
- filetype: Shows results for specific file types. (PDF, TXT)
- site: Limits results to specific websites.
- related: Shows similar or related websites.
- intitle: Used to list pages that contain the words you want in the page title.
- intext: Used to find web pages containing specific words.
There also used to be a search operator such as related:siteadi.com; however, Google removed it.
When using operators, Google may sometimes check whether you are a bot:
Below you will find examples of the use of search operators:
Creating an Internal Link Strategy
site.zeo.org GEO
To build internal links on your site, for example, you can use this search operator to identify pages containing the word “GEO” and link from those pages to the page you want. Google will show you relevant pages on your site that you can link from.
Making the Searches You Want on a Specific Site
site:zeo.org
The site search operator is perhaps one of the most commonly used operators in SEO. By refining this search operator, you can analyze not only your own site but also competitor sites. For example, you can determine how many of Zeo’s blog pages are indexed as shown below:
289 results are shown; if you have more pages and they are not indexed, you can take action to identify the issues causing this. The numbers shown here do not actually provide exact data; they only offer a rough estimate. Therefore, remember that you can find the most accurate information in the Index Coverage reports in Google Search Console.
You can also use the site operator to analyze duplicate content on your site.
Detecting Exact Matching Words
“sports news”
If you want to see the exact words you are searching for in the SERP, as in the example below, you can use this operator:
Although this can be difficult in Turkey, if you work with international websites, you can use this operator especially to find guest blogging opportunities. Example searches:
- “guest blogging”
- “write for us”
- “contribute”
Excluding Specific Keywords and URLs
-search term
You can use this operator to exclude the search terms you want. There can be many use cases. For example, you can see results from Zeo’s site where “blog” does not appear in the URL as follows:
Searching for Specific Keywords in a URL
site:zeo.org inurl:kaynaklar
With the inurl search operator, you can check whether the words you want appear in the URL.
Searching Page Title Tags
intitle:andorra
The intitle: Google operator shows results for the specified keyword in the page title.
You can combine this operator with multiple operators. For example, by searching for “Austria,” you can find pages that contain “visa” in the page title, meaning the <title> element, as shown below:
Finding Anchor Text
inanchor:google news optimization
With inanchor, one of my favorite search operators, you can find anchor text on pages. You can use this search operator especially when building links or carrying out off-page SEO work:
You can see the anchor text you want directly on the page:
Filling in the Blanks
search term1 * search term2
If you want to get more words, you can use the asterisk "*" wildcard operator. With the wildcard, you can get all variations of a word.
You can also see which content your competitors have most recently published or updated as shown below: by adding multiple operators to the “site” search operator, you can obtain the pages you want:
In summary, by using search operators together, you can both analyze competitors and identify issues on your site. I recommend using Google’s advanced search operators and wish you plenty of organic traffic!
Useful Resources:
