{"id":6615,"date":"2021-07-23T17:46:47","date_gmt":"2021-07-23T17:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ardorsys.com\/blog\/?p=6615"},"modified":"2021-07-23T17:51:58","modified_gmt":"2021-07-23T17:51:58","slug":"google-how-to-use-search-operators-for-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ardorsys.com\/blog\/google-how-to-use-search-operators-for-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"Google: How to Use Search Operators for SEO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Google published an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ardorsys.com\/search-engine-optimization-seo-services\/\">Advanced SEO<\/a> Help page about using Google search operators to debug a website.<\/p>\n<p>Google search operator search results are not tied to Google\u2019s regular ranking algorithm and the index used is limited and not up to date.<\/p>\n<p>Yet even with those limitations the search operators provide useful information that can be used for search engine optimization related purposes<\/p>\n<p>They aren\u2019t useful for trying to learn about Google\u2019s algorithm. But the search operators are very useful for learning more about a website.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The new documentation contains a statement about the limitations of the data:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Because search operators are bound by indexing and retrieval limits, the URL Inspection tool in Search Console is more reliable for debugging purposes.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Search operators can however be used to discover interesting information about a site.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The new documentation covers the following search operators:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>site:<\/li>\n<li>cache:<\/li>\n<li>related:<\/li>\n<li>src:<\/li>\n<li>imagesize:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>site: Search Operator<\/h2>\n<p>The site search operator shows a sample of the pages in Google. It\u2019s not all the pages, as Google\u2019s caveat makes clear when it stated that the search operators \u201c<em>are bound by indexing and retrieval limits.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Site Search does not use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ardorsys.com\/blog\/boosting-your-website-to-rank-at-number-1\/\">Google\u2019s regular ranking<\/a> algorithm and only shows a SAMPLE of pages that are indexed.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s always been a random quality to all search operators and that make them unreliable in terms of completeness and especially for trying to find out ranking or algorithm related factors.<\/p>\n<p>This has been true for all of the search operators.<\/p>\n<p>I use site: search as a quick and dirty way to find pages with specific keywords in them but I do that with the understanding that there are pages that might be missing.<\/p>\n<p>For example, I had an issue with Users Generated Content where members on Apple devices were cutting and pasting non-UTF letter characters into the web page, resulting in symbols instead of letters.<\/p>\n<p>Using a site: search operator I was able to find many of them and have the site software rewrite the symbols back into letters sitewide.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Google\u2019s new support page says:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Find search results from a particular domain, URL, or URL prefix. For example:<\/p>\n<pre>site:https:\/\/www.google.com\/\"<\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2>cache: Search Operator<\/h2>\n<p>The cache: search operator shows you Google\u2019s cache of a web page, a copy of what the page looked like when Googlebot last crawled it.<\/p>\n<p>The cache is a great way to figure out if a site is hacked and showing different content to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ardorsys.com\/blog\/the-google-page-experience-update-user-experience-to-become-a-google-ranking-factor\/\">Google<\/a> (cloaking).<\/p>\n<p>Google\u2019s support page for the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/advanced\/debug\/search-operators\/web-search-cache\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">cache search operator has a warning<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The actual cached version might look incomplete or even empty in certain cases.<\/p>\n<p>This might be because JavaScript operations on your page that are responsible for creating the actual layout of the page were blocked by your browser\u2019s same-origin policies.<\/p>\n<p>This is normal and not something that has to be fixed. To see if a JavaScript operation was blocked by the browser, look for errors in your browser\u2019s developer console.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>related: Search Operator<\/h2>\n<p>The related: search operator is a nice one. It tells you what other sites Google identifies as related to the site being searched.<\/p>\n<p>The related: search operator can be useful for telling you if there\u2019s something wrong with the content relevance if Google shows wildly unrelated sites as being related.<\/p>\n<p><strong>This is how to use the\u00a0<em>related:<\/em>\u00a0search operator:<\/strong><\/p>\n<pre>related:https:\/\/www.example.com\/<\/pre>\n<p><strong>Google also has a caveat about this search operator, too:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The lack of your URLs showing up for related: queries is not an indicator of the quality of your pages, nor any other search signal.<\/p>\n<p>The relatedness of URLs is generally only calculated for the most popular URLs on the internet.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, the data that powers the related: query operator is not refreshed real time, so recent popular URLs might not show up in results for the related: search operator.<\/p>\n<p>The related: search operator is not a good tool for debugging specific URLs.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>src: The Hotlink Finder<\/h2>\n<p>The src: search operator finds pages that hotlink to an image.<\/p>\n<p>This is the example that Google\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/advanced\/debug\/search-operators\/image-search#src\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">src: search operator support page<\/a>\u00a0uses:<\/p>\n<pre>src:https:\/\/example.com\/media\/carrot.jpg<\/pre>\n<h2>imagesize:<\/h2>\n<p>The imagesize: search operator finds images with a specific size and is typically used with a site: search operator.<\/p>\n<p>The two image search operators also have limitations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Google\u2019s caveat is similar to previous warnings:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Because image search operators are bound by indexing and retrieval limits, you might not see all of the results that may appear for a standard search query.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>Use Google Search Operators<\/h2>\n<p>Google\u2019s search operators have many uses although not all of the uses might be apparent at first glance.<\/p>\n<p>For example, I\u2019ve never had a use for the imagesize: search operator but there may come a day when I need to know if Google has crawled or indexed an image with specific image dimensions.<\/p>\n<h2>Citations<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Read Google\u2019s brand new search operator overview<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/advanced\/debug\/search-operators\/overview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Overview of Google Search Operators<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Read These Other Search Operator Pages as Well<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/advanced\/debug\/search-operators\/all-search-site\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">site: Search Operator<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/advanced\/debug\/search-operators\/web-search-cache\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">cache: Search Operator<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/advanced\/debug\/search-operators\/image-search\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Google Images Search Operators<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"font-size: 13px;\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/google-shows-how-to-use-search-operators-for-seo\/\">Search Engine Journal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Google Advanced SEO support page shows how to use search operators for identifying errors and making 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