Five Hidden Google Operators

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Many Sourcers know that adding “&filter=0” to the search URL would “tell” Google to “search with omitted results included”.

There are several other ways to control search results that cannot be expressed through the Google advanced search operators.

These include:

  • narrow to a language – set in the Advanced Search Dialog
  • narrow to a country – set in the Advanced Search Dialog
  • search Verbatim (i.e. without interpreting the search) – available through “Tools” after we have searched
  • search within a date range – available through “Tools” after we have searched

Just like “&filter=0”, these filters are expressed through various additions to the Google search URL. We can set these options via appending the search URL with the appropriate strings.

URL addition Meaning Example
&filter=0 include omitted results
&lr= narrow to a language &lr=lang_af
&cr= narrow to a country &cr=countryAF
&tbs=li:1 search Verbatim
tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:<date_start>,cd_max:<date_end> search by date range &tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:3/1/2017,cd_max:2/1/2018

You can find documents with more URL parameters explained by searching for some of the parameters.

Please check out the Boolean Basics class that covers all things Boolean.

 

 

 

 

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