Ever wanted to narrow down a Google search and get more specific? Well, Google’s search operators are there to do just that. A lot of people aren’t even aware that they exist, so we’ve put together a list of them to help you search better.

What are Google search operators?

Google search operators allow you to make your searches more specific with the addition of extra words or symbols. Here’s an example of what a search query with extra operators could look like:

In that example, Google will only return results that include the exact phrase of “social media”, including the space, but exclude any pages that mention Facebook or Snapchat. Clearly this gives you a lot more control over what results Google will show you.

Below we’ve listed out a bunch of useful Google search operators to make searching even more powerful.

Basic Google search operators

Operator Example Details
..."" "social media"" Returns pages that include the exact phrase inside the quote marks.
OR facebook OR twitter OR instagram" Returns pages that include any of the words in the query.
- social media -facebook" Excludes any pages that include words with the dash in front of them.
* * is the best social media platform" The asterisk is a wildcard and will match with any word.
#..# facebook changes #2016..2018#" Searches for the range of numbers including and between the two stated.
site: site:brandwatch.com social media" Only returns results from the website specified.
( ) ("social media" OR "social platform") -facebook" Lets you combine search operators. In this case allowing two exact match searches with no mentions of Facebook.
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Advanced Google search operators

Operator Example Details
intitle: intitle:"twitter statistics"" Returns pages with the exact phrase in the title.
allintitle: allintitle:twitter facebook statistics" Returns pages with any of the words specified in the title.
inurl: inurl:"facebook statistics"" Returns pages with the exact phrase in the URL (will include instances where there are symbols between words, like facebook-statistics).
allinurl: allinurl:instagram youtube" Returns pages with any of the words specified in the URL.
intext: intext:"history of facebook"" Returns pages with the exact phrase in the text/body of the page.
filetype: filetype:pdf social media" Only returns results of the specified filetype.
related: related:facebook.com" Returns related/similar pages to the URL specified.
cache: cache:brandwatch.com" Tells you when a page was last cached by Google.
AROUND (X) instagram AROUND(3) statistics" Returns pages where the two specified words are appear within the specified number of words near each other.

Google search operator tools

Operator Example Details
stocks: stocks:snapchat" Returns stock details on specified company.
weather: weather:margate uk" Returns weather info for specified location.
translator translator" Returns Google's language translation tool.
tip calculator tip calculator" Returns Google's tip calculator tool.
in 120 Fahrenheit in degrees" Converts a value from one unit to another.
time: time:new york" Tells you the time in the location specified.
stopwatch stopwatch" Returns Google's stopwatch tool.
flights flights" Returns Google's flight search tool.
calculator calculator" Returns Google's calculator tool (you can also enter the problem you want to solve directly into Google to get an answer).
timer timer" Returns Google's countdown timer.