The Complete List Of Google Search Operators

How Local SEO Increases Profits: Organic Traffic Growth

Here’s a look at how our SEO glossary has seen organic traffic grow over recent months:

Estimated organic traffic growth to our SEO glossary, via Ahrefs’ Site Explorer

Finding Guest Post Opportunities

Many people look for guest posting opportunities by searching for “write for us” pages within their industry.

For instance, if you run a coffee-related website, you might search for something like coffee intitle:"write for us" inurl:write-for-us:

Searching for guest post opportunities using intitle: and inurl:

However, because this method is widely used, you might find yourself pitching to the same sites as everyone else. A more effective approach is to identify a well-known guest blogger in your niche and find the sites they’ve contributed to.

You can achieve this by searching for [topic] inurl:author/[firstname-lastname].

For example, this search uncovers websites where Ryan Stewart has guest-posted:

Finding posts by a particular author using inurl:

You can also use Ahrefs’ Content Explorer by searching for [topic] author:[firstname lastname].

Searching for posts by a specific author using the author: operator in Ahrefs’ Content Explorer

The advantage of Content Explorer over Google is the ability to filter results to focus on high-quality websites. Additionally, not every site will follow the /author/firstname-lastname/ pattern.

For example, you can easily filter posts from sites with a Domain Rating (DR) above 30 and estimated monthly traffic of at least 5K visitors.

Filtering for posts by a specific author from high-DR and high-traffic websites in Ahrefs’ Content Explorer

SIDENOTE: Depending on how common the person’s name is, this method can sometimes produce a few false positives.

You can even highlight results from domains that haven’t linked to you before, allowing you to prioritize obtaining backlinks from new websites.

Filtering for one page per domain and highlighting domains that haven’t linked to us in Ahrefs’ Content Explorer

Identifying Resource Page Opportunities

Resource pages curate and link to the best resources on a specific topic, making them valuable link prospects if you have a relevant resource to share.

To locate these pages on Google, search for: [topic] intitle:resources inurl:resources.

For example, if you want to build links to a coffee resource, you could use this search:

Searching for resource page opportunities using intitle: and inurl:

Not all of these pages will be worth reaching out to; some may only link to their own resources. You’ll need to sift through and target the most relevant ones.

If you want an easier method for finding resource pages, try this:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter the domain of a major competitor
3. Go to the Backlinks report
4. Filter for backlinks with “resources” in the Ref. page URL

Searching for resource pages in a competitor’s backlink profile in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer

Identifying Files You Don’t Want Indexed in Google

It’s likely that you don’t want every file you upload to your website indexed by Google.

For instance, if you have PDFs as lead magnets or content upgrades, you might want to protect those files to prevent them from being found through Google.

Let’s use the filetype: operator to check for these on ahrefs.com.

Searching for indexed PDFs from a specific site using site: and filetype:

It appears that one PDF is indexed, which is an outdated resource from 2017.

If we were concerned about people finding this file (which we aren’t), we would set it to noindex using an x-robots header response.

Finding the Email Address of the Person You Want to Reach Out To

People frequently share their email addresses on Twitter, and you can use search operators to find those tweets.

For example, if you wanted to locate Tim Soulo’s email address, you could search for any tweets of his that include the words “email” and “gmail.com” or “ahrefs.com” (since his email address is likely associated with one of those domains).

If you perform this search, his email address will appear immediately:

Finding Tim Soulo’s email address on Twitter using the site: operator

FURTHER READING: 6 Ways to Find Anyone’s Email Address (Tried & Tested)

Finding Opportunities to Add Internal Links

Internally linking important content from other relevant pages on your website can drive more traffic to those pages and potentially improve their rankings in organic search.

For example, if you wanted to add some internal links to your list of SEO tips, you could search Google for site:ahrefs.com/blog "SEO tips". This will return blog posts mentioning the phrase “SEO tips” within their content.

Searching for internal link opportunities using the site: operator

In this instance, you can disregard the first result, as it’s the post you want to add internal links to. However, there are 99 other results mentioning SEO tips, many of which are excellent opportunities for contextual internal linking.

For instance, our guide on creating SEO content includes an unlinked mention of “SEO tips,” making it an ideal opportunity to insert an internal link.

Explanation of the Use of Keywords

One limitation of using search operators to discover internal linking opportunities is that they don’t differentiate between linked and unlinked mentions. This means they often highlight opportunities that you’ve already utilized.

For instance, our search found a mention of “SEO tips” in our list of SEO techniques:

Finding mentions on a site using the site: operator

However, upon closer inspection of the page, we see that it’s already internally linked:

Example of a mention found with site:

If you frequently encounter this issue and find it frustrating, consider signing up for a free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools account and try this approach instead:

1. Crawl your website with Site Audit
2. Navigate to the Internal Link Opportunities tool in Site Audit
3. Add your target page’s URL to the search field
4. Select “Target page” from the dropdown next to the search field
5. Press the return key

Using the Internal Link Opportunities tool in Ahrefs’ Site Audit to find places to add internal links

This will provide a list of opportunities, showing:

• Where to link from (Source page).
• Where to add the link (Keyword context).
• Where to link to (Target page).

FURTHER READING: Internal Links for SEO: An Actionable Guide

Find “Best” Listicles That Don’t Mention Your Brand

Let’s say you operate an email marketing tool like ConvertKit.

If you search Google for “best email marketing tools,” you’ll find countless results listing top choices:

Google search results for “best email marketing tools”

Given that you likely want your tool featured on these lists, it’s helpful to know which lists already mention your brand and which do not. This way, you can reach out to the authors of lists that exclude your tool and ask them to add it.

You can do this by appending your search with -[your business name]:

Excluding results mentioning a particular brand with the "-" operator

Alternatively, for a quicker approach, you can use Ahrefs’ Content Explorer.

If you’re not familiar with Content Explorer, it’s a marketing search engine with an index of over 11 billion pages. You can use it to find listicles that don’t mention your brand by searching title:"best [whatever]" -[yourbrand].

For example, searching for lists of the best email marketing tools that don’t mention ConvertKit yields 3,182 results:

Excluding results mentioning a particular brand in Ahrefs’ Content Explorer using the "-" operator

What makes Content Explorer more efficient than Google is that you can filter the results by factors like Domain Rating (DR), estimated website traffic, and more. Plus, you can export the results in just a few clicks.

For instance, narrowing the results to one page per domain and filtering for websites with a DR of 30 or more reduces the list from 3,182 to 156 pages:

Narrowing results with filters in Ahrefs’ Content Explorer

This smaller number of websites is much easier to review and potentially reach out to.

Find Websites That Have Reviewed Competitors

If a website has reviewed a competitor, it may also be willing to review your product or service.

Here’s how to find reviews of your competitors: allintitle:review ([competitor 1] OR [competitor 2]).

For example, if we wanted to find reviews of ConvertKit’s competitors, we might search:

Finding websites that have reviewed competitors with the allintitle: operator

For more recent posts, you can add the after: operator to find recently published reviews, allowing you to target websites that are still actively updating content.

Using the after: operator to filter for results from a specific period

SIDENOTE: You can use Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar to download the search results.

However, it’s even easier to perform this search in Content Explorer because you can filter and export results more efficiently.

Here’s how to run the same search there:

1. Choose “In title” as the search mode
2. Search for review (mailchimp OR aweber)
3. Filter for one page per domain

Searching for reviews that mention competitors in Ahrefs’ Content Explorer

This search returns 2,948 results—quite a few! To prioritize the most relevant sites, filter for pages published in the last 12 months on websites with at least 1K monthly search visits:

Filtering the results in Ahrefs’ Content Explorer

To stay on top of new competitor reviews, set up a “Mentions” alert in Ahrefs Alerts. You can use the same search from Content Explorer and apply filters for DR and domain traffic.

Setting up an alert for competitor reviews in Ahrefs Alerts

Find Relevant Quora Questions to Answer

Quora is a platform where users ask questions and contributors provide answers, with the most helpful answers being upvoted to the top.

As demonstrated by my colleague Si Quan Ong, Quora is a fantastic platform for building brand awareness. He has amassed over 2 million views on his answers and continues to receive over 25K views each month, despite being less active recently:

My colleague’s achievements on Quora

While Quora’s search function works well for finding questions to answer, it limits you to searching one topic at a time.

Since Quora uses the question itself as the URL, you can bypass this limitation with the following search operator: site:quora.com inurl:([topic 1] | topic 2).

For example, if you run a health and fitness website, you might search for:

Searching for relevant threads on Quora using inurl:

If you’re an Ahrefs user, you can also combine this with the SEO Toolbar to overlay traffic estimates on the search engine results page (SERP). This allows you to focus on answering questions that already attract organic traffic.

Using Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar to check estimated traffic to relevant Quora threads on the fly

For an even faster method:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter quora.com
3. Go to the Top Pages report
4. Filter for results with URLs that contain specific words

This will provide you with a list of relevant Quora answers, sorted by their estimated monthly search traffic from high to low.

Searching for relevant Quora threads with traffic in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer

For example, one of the top questions asks whether it’s better to make a protein shake with milk or water and receives an estimated 792 monthly visits. If you provide a quality answer that gets upvoted, your response could be seen by hundreds of people each month.

Even better, since you can include links in your answers, these responses can also drive referral traffic to your website.

Find Out How Fast Your Competitors Are Publishing New Content

By combining the site: operator with the before: and/or after: operators, you can determine how frequently a competitor publishes new content within a given timeframe.

For example, here’s how many posts another SEO blog published in December 2022:

Checking a competitor’s publishing pace using the site:, after:, and before: operators

And here’s how many they published throughout 2022:

Checking Search Engine Land’s publishing pace using the site:, after:, and before: operators

Keep in mind that this operator isn

Understanding Boolean Operators in Google Search

Boolean operators are a powerful tool in Google search that allow you to refine your search queries with greater precision. By using Boolean operators such as AND, OR, and NOT, you can combine or exclude keywords to narrow down your search results and focus on exactly what you’re looking for.

Using the AND Operator

The AND operator is used to ensure that all the keywords you specify appear in the search results. For example, searching for SEO AND content marketing will return results that include both terms. Although Google automatically assumes an AND between words, explicitly using the AND operator can clarify your intent, especially in more complex searches.

Using the OR Operator

The OR operator allows you to search for results that include either one keyword or another. This is particularly useful when you’re looking for information on related topics or synonyms. For example, SEO OR SEM will return results that mention either SEO, SEM, or both.

Using the NOT Operator

The NOT operator (represented by a minus sign -) is used to exclude certain terms from your search results. For instance, if you’re interested in learning about content marketing strategies but want to avoid results related to social media, you could search for content marketing -social media. This will remove any pages that mention social media from your results.

Combining these Boolean operators with Google’s advanced search operators can significantly improve the accuracy of your searches, enabling you to zero in on the most relevant information.

Leveraging Google’s Advanced Search Page for Precise Results

Google’s Advanced Search page is an underutilized resource that provides a user-friendly interface for conducting detailed searches without needing to remember specific search operators. It’s particularly useful for those who may not be as familiar with manual search operators or who prefer a visual approach to refining search queries.

Advanced Search Features Overview

The Advanced Search page allows you to filter results by language, region, last update, site or domain, and even the format of the results (such as PDF or DOC). You can also use it to find pages with a specific range of numbers, which can be useful for research or data analysis. All these options are laid out in an intuitive interface that makes it easy to adjust your search parameters.

Step-by-Step Guide to Using Google’s Advanced Search

1. Navigate to Google’s Advanced Search page by clicking on “Settings” at the bottom of the Google homepage and selecting “Advanced search.”
2. Enter the keywords you want to search for in the appropriate fields, using the options provided to include or exclude terms, specify exact phrases, and more.
3. Select any additional filters you need, such as language, region, or last update, to narrow down your results.
4. Click “Advanced Search” to see the filtered results based on your specified criteria.

Using Advanced Search for SEO

For SEO professionals, Google’s Advanced Search page can be an invaluable tool. It allows you to quickly assess competitor content, identify potential link-building opportunities, and analyze the types of content that rank well for specific queries. By combining the power of Google’s search algorithms with precise filtering options, you can gain deeper insights into your SEO strategy.

Whether you’re conducting keyword research, analyzing competitor strategies, or simply trying to find the most relevant information, Google’s Advanced Search page offers a straightforward way to refine your searches and obtain precise results.