The document discusses advanced search strategies for Google and other search engines. It covers advanced search pages, filters and limits, prefixes, exact searches using phrase marks or operators like "intext:", and special search sources. Advanced techniques include using operators like "site:" to search specific domains or directories, Boolean operators, and searching non-web sources like Google Books, Scholar, or Ngram. The document is intended to teach powerful search skills across Google and other search tools.

1. Advanced Search Strategies
by Greg R. Notess, greg@notess.com
Montana State University
SearchEngineShowdown.com
Twitter: @notess

2. • Arstechnica: snipr.com/gdork14
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3. Overview
• Advanced Search Pages
• Advanced Search Commands
• Filters & Limits
• Prefixes
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4. Remaining Google Advanced
Search Pages
• Web google.com/advanced_search
• Images google.com/advanced_image_search
• News news.google.com/news/advanced_news_search
• Books google.com/advanced_book_search
• Patents google.com/advanced_patent_search
• Gone: Groups, Video, Shopping, Blogs (and basic)
• Scholar Exists but No Direct Link
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5. Filters: Google Search Tools
• Tools Vary, Depending on Database
– Web Search
• Time, Results, Location
– Image Search
• Size, Color, Type, Time, Usage Rights, More (!?)
– News Search
• News/Blogs, Time, Sort
– Book Search
• Any Books, Any Documents, Any Time, Sort
– Video Search
• Duration, Time, Quality, CC, Source
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6. Web Results Search Tools
• More Tools When Signed In
• Features Have Been Disappearing
• “Results” Includes Verbatim, Reading Level
– Verbatim: Not Able To Combine With All Features
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7. Exact Searches
• Exact Search Options:
– Verbatim search tool
– intext: prefix
– “phrase marks” “around” “each” “word or
phrase”
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8. Phrase Searching
• Default Ranking at Google
• “most important advanced feature”
• Phrase Search or Exact or Precision?
• Changing Functionality
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9. Not Always Phrase, Exact, or
Precise
• “linded data”
• Google Zero Results:
– Gives Alternative Results & Explanation
• Bing Zero Results: No Explanation
– + Forces Precision and Shows Zero
• Other Databases
– May Appear to Work but May Not Be Precise
– libguides.com Example
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10. Punctuation Searching
Symbol What you can use it for
[+] Search for things like blood type [AB+] or for a Google+ page like [+Chrome]
[@] Find social tags like [@google]
[&] Find strongly connected ideas and phrases like [A&E]
[%] Search for a percent value like [40% of 80]
[$] Indicate prices, like [nikon $400]
[#] Search for trending topics indicated by hashtags like [#lifewithoutgoogle]
[-] Indicate that words around it are strongly connected like [twelve-year-old dog]
[_] Connect two words like [quick_sort]. Your search results will find this pair of words either linked together
(quicksort) or connected by an underscore (quick_sort).
• support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433
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11. Shortcuts to Advanced Search
PREFIXES
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12. Prefix Syntax
• Typically prefix:queryword
– No Spaces
• site: edu Searches Both Words
– Some Support Phrase Search (But Not All)
• Most (Not All) Advanced Features Have
Prefixes
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13. Google All In vs. In Prefix
• allintitle: vs. intitle:
• Note that the “allin….” prefixes mean
– All following words will be in that field
– Cannot be combined with other terms, most of
the time
• The “in…” fields like intitle and intext,
support phrase syntax
– intext:“advanced search”
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14. Web Search Prefixes
site: TLD, domain, computer name, & directory
filetype: Try almost any file extension
link: Shows some links to a specific URL
cache: Followed by URL for cached copy of a page
info: id: For a URL: links to cache, related, links, site
search, & term matches
related: Pages similar to URL based on link patterns
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15. Unlisted Web Prefixes
The following are no longer listed in Google
help but still appear to work for now
intext: allintext: Words in body; not URLs, title, or inbound links
intitle: allintitle: Words in the HTML title element
inurl: allinurl: Words within a URL (domain, directories, file name)
inanchor: Words within anchor text on a page
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16. Google Book Search
intitle: Book title words
inauthor: Author names
inpublisher: Publisher words
subject: Old advanced search form; does
not include all books
isbn: enter with no space or punctuation;
ISBN-10 or ISBN-13
issn: enter 8 digits with no space or dash
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17. Google Scholar
author: Instead of inauthor: (or use
advanced search)
intitle: allintitle: For allintitle: can also use
advanced search form & combine
Other Web Prefixes Also Work
intext:
filetype:
site:
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18. site: Search
• TLD Required
– site:tld OR site:company.tld OR site:sub-area.
company.tld
• Expanded to Include Directories (Google)
– site:imf.org/external/pubs
• To WWW or Not To WWW
– Compare site:imf.org/external/pubs to
site:www.imf.org/external/pubs
– Can Have >1 site: Operator per Query
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19. SPECIAL SOURCES &
TECHNIQUES
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20. Other Google Operators
• Numrange
– 5..8.34
– numrange:5-8.34
– "library fines" site:edu $101..$150
• Wildcard Word in a Phrase
– * Represents One (or More) Word(s)
– "a wealth of information creates * attention“
– Quotes Not Required
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21. Other Google Search Sites
• Table Search
– research.google.com/tables
• NGRAM Search
– books.google.com/ngrams
– Updated through 2008
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22. Dan Russell
• Anthropologist of Search
• MOOC: powersearchingwithgoogle.com
• Blog: searchresearch1.blogspot.com
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23. Questions?
“Search well, be
wise”
-Aeschylus
Greg R. Notess, greg@notess.com
Twitter: @notess
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