Control Google Search Results via the URL

booleanstrings Boolean 1 Comment

Google allows us to keep the preferences for the number of the results per page, but there are no user-friendly ways to keep some other favorite options.

One way to do that is through the URL of the search page. It may look cryptic at first but let’s be brave and try to alter the URL and see how it affects the results.

First of all, if we examine the URL, we will see our Boolean string included in it after q= ; as an example, part of  the URL for a search may be q=intitle:resume+or+inurl:resume+%22san+francisco%22++java+developer+-sample+-job+-jobs+-apply+-need

If you are looking at 100 results per page, part of the URL will be &num=100.

Here are a few other helpful additions to the URL. You can add them to the search URL on the fly, to affect the results, or keep your strings as URLs to re-run them with all the options conveniently included.

  • &newwindow=1 — open the results in a new window
  • &filter=0 — show all the results, include omitted results
  • &tbs=qdr:10y,sbd:1 — “search by date” (here’s why I am also including a big date range of 10 years: &tbs=sbd:1 would mean “search by date” – but it doesn’t work unless you select a date range)
  • &tbs=prv:1 — show page previews

To combine the last two options, write &tbs=prv:1,qdr:10y,sbd:1

There are other useful options but I will save those for another time.

Here’s how to try this technique out. Run your search, then add this to the end of the URL:  &num=100&newwindow=1&filter=0&tbs=prv:1

Or, if you want to also sort by date, add &num=100&newwindow=1&filter=0&tbs=prv:1,qdr:10y,sbd:1 and see what happens.

Sorry, folks, this is a little technical but it saves you a lot of mousing and clicking. Besides, this is the only quick way I know of to sort the results by date.

Did you know you can control search results in social networks as well? Come to my Advanced Social Network Search webinar to find out…

Comments 1

  1. great stuff irina, I have been using it for many purposes, I remember when you threw a challenge to win thee pass for Sourcecon I answered a question with this stuff…

    Great thing is that you can even check the fresh results sorting it by Minutes, hours etc…

    Thanks for sharing..

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *