I recently wrote a post titled Using Google Alerts to Track Copies of Your Web Content. In that post I mentioned using Google search results to watch for duplicate copies of your work showing up on other Web sites. The example I used was a common Google search term used by probably many webmasters, but may not be known by the general public.
In this post I will explain some of the search terms that you can use in Google that can give you interesting results outside of just simple keyword searches.
Webmaster Searches
Most people perform a simple keyword search, which basically involves searching for a specific word or phase in a Web page. Since most, if not all, people online know how to perform this search, I won’t discuss it in this post.
In this section I will concentrate on searches that could help a webmaster find specific information about their site in Google. If you use the Webmaster Tools within Google, you can easily perform these searches as they are hyperlinked in the Webmaster Tools.
- site:
Use this operator followed by the URL to see all the pages for the URL that are included in the index. For example, site:technicallyeasy.net will display all pages in the Google index for Technically Easy.
- link:
This operator will return all pages in the Google index that link to a specific site. For example, to show all the pages linked to Technically Easy, I would use link:technicallyeasy.net.
- cache:
Google caches a version of your Web site that you can view when you click the Cached link in the search results. You can easily view the cache by including this operator followed by your URL in the search.
- info:
Including this operator in the Google search bar followed by the URL will return all information Google has about the site.
- related:
When you use this operator, Google will return pages that are similar to yours. To view pages that are similar to Technically Easy, I would input related:technicallyeasy.net in the Google search bar.
The search operators shown above are useful to webmasters, and can be used from Google’s Webmaster Tools. In the next few sections I will show some other search examples that may be of some interest to you.
Finding Definitions
In addition to search for specific keywords, Google also has the ability to display definitions of words. It does this by searching various web sites for the definitions and then displays them in the search results. As with the webmaster searches defined above, finding definitions is a matter of using a specific operator. To find definitions you use the define: operator.
For example, if I wanted to find a definition for the word “technical”, I would enter define:technical in the Google search bar. Google will then display the definitions from various web sites, as well as provide the links to those sites.
If I wanted to go even further and find the definition for “technical analysis” I would enter define:technical analysis in the search bar. This will provide the definitions for that word combination. You can enclose the words “technical analysis” in quotes, such as define:”technical analysis” if you wish. The same definitions will be returned for either example.
The next time you need a definition of a word, and you don’t have a dictionary handy, you can use Google to find the definition.
Conversions
The last search type I will show you is the conversion searches. These searches allow you to easily convert a unit of measurement to another unit of measurement. The conversion appears at the top of search results (Google also provides search results for the measurements as well).
For example, to convert 1 foot to centimeteres, you can enter 1ft to cm or 1ft to centimeter. You can use either short or long form for the measurement units.
You can also convert temperatures, such as 20C to F. This will convert 20 Celsius to Fahrenheit (68 degrees).
If you attempt to convert incompatible measurements, such as 1ft to oz (feet to ounces) you won’t get a conversion, just the search results.
Summary
This post provided several search types that you can perform in Google. Search terms for webmasters, definitions, and conversions were explained. There are many more searches that you can perform in Google, which I may share with you in a future post.