Googling to the Max
Googling Guide #3 Research Quality Web Searching, Part 1
Teaching Library
Limit Commands in Google UC Berkeley
MIXING LIMIT COMMANDS: You can combine or mix most limit commands with other limit
commands and/or search terms. You can use Boolean operators, and phrases to do this. However,
you cannot mix anything with commands that apply to all terms that follow the command (e.g.,
allintitle: allinurl:).
Limit/Focus Suggested Uses Examples:
Commands & Limitations:
intitle: Requires terms to occur in the • intitle:"sea level" rise california
field, part of the HTML or • intitle:"global warming" intitle:"sea
top section. level" california
Finds pages likely to be focused on your • intitle:"global warming" site:epa.gov –
terms. site:com
allintitle: Requires all terms that follow to be in • allintitle: global warming sea level rise
title field. Equivalent of repeating • allintitle: global warming "sea level
intitle: before all terms. rise"
Words may be in any order unless
quotes are used to force phrases.
Focuses narrowly on pages about the
terms used.
inurl: Requires terms to be in URLs. • inurl:"joe barker" finds pages with these
Can be used with or without quotes, and two in URLs, allowing any punctuation.
repeated. • inurl:joe barker finds pages with joe in
URL punctuation is ignored. URLs, and barker somewhere in the
Usually finds pages focused very document.
specifically on terms.
allinurl: Requires all terms to occur somewhere • allinurl: infopeople training finds pages
in URLs, in any order. like www.infopeople.org/training/
site: Must be followed by all or the last part • site:infopeople.org finds all pages in
of the top level of a URL, which Google from this site.
identifies a "site." Must include org, • site:infopeople.org training finds pages in
edu, com, etc. Google from this site with the word
"www" and http:// optional. "training."
Requires all results to have this as the • site:org OR site:edu librarian training
top level URL (or site). finds pages with these terms inside .org or
Use to search within a site or limit to .edu sites in Google.
type of site (e.g., org or edu).
filetype: Follow by a file extension (pdf, xls, • filetype:pdf "native americans" diabetes
doc, ppt, etc.). • filetype:pdf OR filetype:ppt "boolean
Requires terms to be in these types of searching"
documents.
daterange:Julian A more precise way to limit by date last • web searching daterange:2452640-
dates (date Google crawled than the Adv. Search, which 2453005 finds pages containing these
visited & found content allows only 3 mos, 6 mos, l yr. terms crawled between 6/1/03 and 6/1/04.
changes). Finds recently updated pages, pages
created on a specific date, and un-
updated pages.
If you don't know Julian dates:
www.faganfinder.com/ google.html
-- M O R E --
Googling to the Max, Teaching Library, UC Berkeley, 2004-2005. Adapted from materials developed by Joe Barker for "Extreme Googling," an
Infopeople Workshop. The Infopeople Project [infopeople.org] is supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions
of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.
Limit/Focus Suggested Uses Examples:
Commands & Limitations:
numrange: An optional way of specifying that you • numrange:1920..1930
.. want pages only containing a certain
range of numbers.
- You can just type 123..456, 123.., or
..456 and get the same result.
Google also accepts 123-456, 123-, or
-456.
Sites from foreign Find web pages from servers in a • Step 1: In Google Search Box, perform the
country (URL specific country, regardless of TLD. search:
List of country codes at recipes OR cooking brazil OR brazilian
hack) www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm • Step 2: In Address box, append to the URL
After a Google search,
created by step 1:
append to resulting
&restrict=countryBR
URL in Address box:
&restrict=country
XX
with XX being a
capitalized two-letter
country code.
Limit Commands Suggested Uses Examples:
for Web Managers & Limitations:
and Authors:
intext: Requires search terms to occur in the Limited application, because in text is default.
text or . • intext:"sheet music" lincoln
They may also occur in the title, url, or
other places, and so this search
resembles the default search, which
looks at text.
allintext Requires all search terms to occur in the • allintext: finding information
text or .
Equivalent of repeating intext: before
each term.
inanchor: Require terms to be in the anchor text, • inanchor:"infopeople project" finds pages
the descriptive text that is linked to with this as text linked to, in URLs, or in
in HTML, found between > and Infopeople Project
Text may also occur elsewhere and not
in anchor text.
Many pages found point to a page with
the anchor text and do not contain it.
Of value to web authors looking for
links to a page via text (as opposed to
the link: search, which reads the
URLs in links).
allinanchor: Requires all search terms to occur in the • allinanchor: irs 1040
anchor text any order, as explained
above.
Extreme Googling Summer/Fall 2004 - This material has been created by Joe Barker for the Infopeople Project [infopeople.org], supported by the U.S.
Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State
Librarian. Any use of this material should credit the author and funding source.