©2008 SEOmoz This article is designed as all-in-one guide to advanced searching and using advanced search operators to help resolve SEO issues or get answers to SEO problems. Offering the detailed coverage of three major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN), the guide also illustrates how the search queries can help with important SEO issues: competitive analysis, keyword research, SEO site diagnostics, and link building. Additionally, the article covers other search engines, search related services, and valuable online SEO tools.
Table of Contents
1. 2. 3. 4. Introduction: Who is This Guide For? How & When to Employ Tools, Queries & Web Services Valuable Web-Based Tools for SEOs Advanced Search Queries Google Queries Yahoo! Queries MSN/Live Queries Comparison of Advanced Search Operators Across Google, Yahoo! and MSN Other Engines & Query Sources 5. Valuable Search-Related Services on the Web 6. Closing: Employing Queries, Services & Tools for Direct ROI
Introduction: Who is This Guide For?
Search engine optimization is unthinkable without analytics and research. Knowing where to find necessary data and how to quickly collect information is essential to an effective SEO process. Most often the answer lies in the search engine itself or search engine-based tools. The guide is thus developed for both experienced and start-up SEOs as an ultimate resource for useful, actionable data on how to use all of the tools the search engines provide. The goals behind this guide are as follows:
To show how to effectively use search engines to quickly find information you need To make up an easily searchable resource for all available advanced queries and query sources To illustrate how the advanced searching can be used To investigate search engine operators and how they can be used to enhance search engine optimization efforts To review most valuable web-based SEO tools
How & When to Employ Tools, Queries & Web Services
Search engines provide tools to help you with the most essential SEO tasks:
Competitive analysis Keyword research SEO site auditing Link building
Competitive analysis is the first thing to do when planning a website and is also a continuous process you will need to often return to when building and promoting your site. In order to get on top of SEO efforts for your industry, you should know who is ahead of you in SERPs. Competitive research can
basically include (though it is not limited to) the following steps (all of which are handled with the help of search operators and tools described in the guide): 1. Identifying how many pages in SERPs you are going to compete with for the given (core) term (i.e., the overall number of competitors) 2. Determining who your direct competitors are (i.e., who to watch for, whose example to follow and mistakes to avoid) 3. Evaluating the strengths of those competitors' websites: their site age, on-site SEO, and incoming links (i.e., your keyword difficulty), etc. Keyword research is a complex but a very important process of choosing and implementing nicherelated terms that comply with the following criteria: they have the highest relevance, low or reasonably high competition level ("difficulty"), and high conversion rates. While webmasters have a variety of valuable web-based keyword research tools, search engines and search-based applications can also be very helpful for: 1. Finding relevant popular keyword phrases 2. Expanding your keyword list with keyword phrases, synonyms, and related terms 3. Evaluating your keyword competition SEO site auditing is the process of evaluating how search-engine-friendly your website is and also of finding and correcting on-page SEO mistakes to improve the site visibility, reach, and accessibility. SEO site diagnostics include: 1. Site architecture analysis 2. On-page keyword prominence evaluation (title tags, internal anchor text, header tags, page content, etc) 3. Robots.txt file review 4. Header response analysis 5. Website crawl and indexation rates 6. Website canonical problems check 7. Website possible internal duplicate content issues analysis 8. Website internal power evaluation (finding most powerful/weakest pages) Link building is the process of gaining inbound links to your website. Since links are the integral part of the Internet as they connect sites into a web, it is quite natural that they play the most important role in search engine algorithms and hence in building a successful, highly ranked website. The tasks wherein advanced search can be of major help include: 1. 2. 3. 4. Exploring your competitors' link building strategies and tactics Finding relevant websites and pages to get a backlink from Finding any site's most powerful/relevant page to get the most link juice from Finding relevant places for possible link baiting (e.g., relevant social media sites, discussion boards, and blogs)
Valuable Web-Based Tools for SEOs
Below, some valuable free web-based SEO tools are briefly reviewed to give you an idea of their most useful features and options. SEO Browser (and also the one provided by DomainTools) lets you look at the page the way search engine spiders do. This will help you understand your (or your competitor's) on-page optimization better by seeing:
which elements (keywords) of the page are more prominent which elements of the page search crawlers "see" first whether all sections of your site can be seen by crawlers (e.g., those with JavaScript elements) (in advanced mode) an outline of the page meta tags, domain IP address, header response, page size, total number of links, words and images, etc.
SEO Book Keyword Research Tool is a free keyword research tool powered by Wordtracker's API. Apart from plenty of other valuable information, the tool provides you with:
keyword suggestions estimated daily traffic for Google, Yahoo and MSN WordTracker count links to more valuable data sources like Google Trends, Google Adwords traffic estimator, etc.
What's more, the tool offers a CSV export feature which is vital for working with keyword lists.
SEO for Firefox Toolbar Extension (or a similar one, SEOquake FireFox Extension) is used to enhance Google and Yahoo! search results page by integrating essential SEO information for each result:
Google PR of the page Google cache date Domain age Del.icio.us mentions Yahoo backlinks (plus .edu and .gov links) Yahoo linkdomain info Alexa and Compete.com rank number of pages indexed by Google Yahoo directory, DMOZ, Wikipedia and Best of the Web presence
Moreover, it has a variety of settings allowing to adjust the tool to your own needs (and one-click toggle option if you don't need it at the moment).
User Agent Switcher is a FireFox extension that lets you switch the user agent of the browser (for example, to it being a Googlebot). Make it even better with this extended user-agent list. DomainTools.com has a number of valuable SEO tools:
WhoIS lookup (free) - to find the domain age, registrant's contact information, domain IP address (quick tip: install domain tools search plugin for quick domain lookups) SEO browser (free) - to see your page as search engines do Domain history (paid, subscription based) - to learn the full historical whois records Reverse IP (free) - to find all domains hosted on the given IP address DNS tool (free) - to ping your domain/ IP Domain suggestions - to generate a list of suggested domains based on your keyword Typo generator - to find a list of all possible misspellings of the given domain and its availability
LinkDiagnosis (based on Yahoo linkdomain report) provides you with an exhaustive backlink report for any domain, including:
linking page PR backlink anchor text linking page outbound links
back link type (nofollow, missing, or good) pages having most backlinks page rank distribution of the linking pages
The tool also has powerful sorting and filtering options and has a plain user-friendly interface.
Advanced Search Queries
Search operators supported by three major search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo): The following 4 search operators are widely known and can be used to adjust search results to your current needs: 1. [-keyword] excludes the keyword from the search results, e.g., [loans -student] shows results for all types of loans except students' ones 2. [+keyword] allows for a forced keyword inclusion (especially useful for including stopwords), e.g., [seo +for] 3. ["key phrase"] shows search results for the exact phrase, e.g., ["seo company"] 4. [keyword1 OR keyword2] shows results for at least one of the keywords, e.g., [google OR yahoo]
Google Queries
Google supports a number of advanced search operators used to help resolve SEO issues. The table below gives a brief overview of the queries, how they can be used for SEO purposes, and the examples of usage: Operator Short Description SEO Application Examples
(Site:) - DomainRestricted Search
Narrows a search to (a) specific domain(s) Narrows the results to documents containing (a) search term(s) in the URLs Restricts the results to documents containing (a) search term(s) in a page title Restricts the results to documents containing (a) search term(s) in the anchor text of backlinks pointing to a page Restricts the results to documents containing (a) search term(s) in the body text a page
Shows sites of a specific TLD
[site:.org]
(InURL:) / (AllInUrl:) - URL Keyword Restricted Search
Find web pages having your keyword in a file path.
[inurl:seo inurl:company ] = [allinurl:seo company]
[intitle:seo intitle:company] Find web pages using your keyword in a page title = [allintitle:seo company]
(InTitle:) / (AllInTitle:) Title Keyword Restricted Search
(InAnchor:) / (AllInAnchor:) Anchor Text Keyword Restricted Search
Find pages having most backlinks / most powerful backlinks with the keyword in the anchor text
[inanchor:seo inanchor:company] = [allinanchor:seo company]
(Intext:) - Body Text Keyword Restricted Search
Find pages containing most relevant /most optimized body text
[intext:seo]
A few of possible extensions/ filetypes:
(Ext:) / (Filetype) - Filetype Restricted Search
Narrows search results to the pages that end in a particular file extension
pdf ( Adobe Portable Document Format) html or htm ( Hypertext Markup Language) xls ( Microsoft Excel) ppt ( Microsoft PowerPoint) doc (Microsoft Word)
[filetype:pdf]
(*) - Wildcard Search
Means "insert any word here" Shows "related pages" by finding pages linking to the site and looking who else they tend to link to (i.e., "cocitation")
search for a phrase "partial match"
[seo * directory] returns "seo free directory", "seo friendly directory", etc Compare: [related:www.linkdiy.com]
(Related:) Similar URLs Search
Evaluate how relevant the site's "neighbors" are
and [related:www.seomoz.org]
(Info:) Information about a URL Search
Gives information about the given page
Apart from providing links for further URL information, this search can alert you of possible site issues (duplicate content or possible DNS problems) Google's text version of the page works the same way as SEO Browser
[info:seomoz.org] will show you the page title, description and invite you to view its related pages, incoming links, and page cached version SEOmoz home page text version of the page
(Cache:)
Shows Google's saved copy of the page
* Display Bug: Not all indexed URLs might be displayed (even if you use the "repeat the search with omitted results included" link to see the full list). To see more results, the following search patterns can be used:
[site:yourdomain.com/subdirectory1] + [site:yourdomain.com/subdirectory2] + etc (the "deeper" you dig, the more/more accurate results you get) [site:yourdomain.com inurl:keyword1] + [site:yourdomain.com inurl:keyword2] + etc (for subdirectory-specific keywords) [site:yourdomain.com intitle:keyword1] + [site:yourdomain.com intitle:keyword2] + etc
Combined Google queries: To get more information from Google advanced search, learn how to effectively combine search operators. The following table illustrates which search patterns can be applied to make the most of some important SEO research tasks: What for Description Search who mentions your competitor; use the date range operator within Google advanced search to find most recent brand mentions. The following brand-specific search terms can be used: [domainname.com], [domain name], [domainname], [site owner name], etc. Format [domainname.com site:domainname.c om] (+ add &as_qdr=d (past one day) to the Example
Competitive Analysis
[seomoz site:seomoz.org] during past 24 hours
query string) Keyword Research
Find more keyword phrases Find the site's most powerful pages
[key * phrase]
[free * tools]
SEO Site Auditing
Find the site's most relevant page Find the site's most powerful page related to the keyword Search for relevant forums and discussion boards to participate in discussions and probably link back to your site
[site:domain inanchor:keyword] [inurl:forum OR inurl:forums keyword]
[site:seomoz.org inanchor:seo]
Link Building
[inurl:forum OR inurl:forums seo]
FireFox plugins for quicker access to Google advanced search queries: 1. Advanced Dork: for quick access to (intitle:), (inurl:), (site:), (ext:) operators for a highlighted word on a page:
2. Google Advanced Operations for quick access to Google's advanced search:
3. Searchstatus allows for a quick access to a (site:) operator to explore a currently active domain:
Yahoo! Queries
Yahoo!'s most popular SEO advanced search operator is the one that checks the page or domain backlinks. Since MSN dropped its inbound link checking ability (and while Google allows for only partial reports), Yahoo! has remained the main source for the page backlink info. Other Yahoo! queries are mostly used to enhance (link:) search. The table below lists the most essential Yahoo! advanced operators and samples of their usage in SEO: Operator Short Description Find any page backlinks (Link:) - URL Backlinks Restricted Search (if used in isolation, redirects to Yahoo Site Explorer) Find any domain backlinks (LinkDomain:) Domain Backlinks Restricted Search (if used in isolation, redirects to Yahoo Site Explorer) Narrows a search to (a) specific site(s) (Site:) - DomainRestricted Search (works the way Google's site: operator does) (if used in isolation, redirects to Shows relevant sites of a specific TLD Find most relevant backlinks of any domain [linkdomain:http://www.se omoz.org seo] Find most relevant backlinks of any page [link:http://www.seomoz.or g/blog seo] SEO Application Examples
[site:.org seo]
Yahoo Site Explorer) Restricts the results to documents containing (a) search term(s) in the URL Restricts the results to documents containing (a) search term(s) in a page title
(InURL:) - URL Keyword Restricted Search
Find web pages using your keyword in a file path
[inurl:seo]
(InTitle:) - Title Keyword Restricted Search
Find web pages using your keyword in the title
[intitle:seo]
A few possible extensions/ filetypes:
(OriginUrlExtension: ) - Filetype Restricted Search
Narrows search results to the pages that end in a particular file extension
pdf ( Adobe Portable Document Format) html or htm ( Hypertext Markup Language) xls ( Microsoft Excel) ppt ( Microsoft PowerPoint) doc (Microsoft Word)
[originurlextension:pdf]
Available regions:
(Region:) - Area Restricted Search
Narrows search results to the sites belonging to a particular territory
region:europe region:africa region:asia region:centralameric a region:downunder region:mediterranean region:mideast region:northamerica region:southamerica region:southeastasia
[region:europe]
(Url:) - URL restricted search
Finds a specific document in Yahoo's index
Learn if the page was indexed by Yahoo
[url:http://www.seomoz.org ]
Combined Yahoo queries: What for Description Format [linkdomain:site.com site:site.com link:http://www.site.com link:http://site.com] / [linkdomain:site.com site:site.com] Example [linkdomain:seomoz.org site:seomoz.org link:http://www.seomoz.org -link:http://seomoz.org] / [linkdomain:seomoz.org site:seomoz.org] ~ 1,230,000 / 1,290,000 = 0.09 [seo region:europe]
Competitive Analysis
Explore your competitor's deep link ratio
Keyword Research SEO Site Auditing
Explore territoryspecific usage of your keyword Search for the best optimized page of the site
[keyword region:europe] [intitle:keyword inurl:keyword site:www.site.org]
[intitle:seo inurl:seo site:www.seomoz.org]
Link Building
Find geo-specific backlinks of a page/ domain
[link:http://www.domain.co m region:europe]
[European based sites linking to Amazon.com]
FireFox extensions to help with Yahoo (Link:) and (LinkDomain:) search operators: 1. SearchStatus to show currently active page/domain backlinks in Yahoo:
2. SEO for Firefox Toolbar Extension (or, similarly, the SEOquake FireFox Extension) to access Yahoo! backlink data right from the search results page or from the currently active page (SEOquake):
MSN/Live Queries
While MSN/Live advanced search is not as widely used for SEO purposes as before (when they provided a handy backlink report), it is still worth trying to better understand your site SEO issues or effectively find valuable SEO data. Besides, MSN offers a few quite unique search operators worth looking into: Operator Short Description Narrows search to (a) specific site(s) (Site:) - DomainRestricted Search (works similarly to the corresponding Google's operator) search for sites of a specific TLD SEO Application Examples
[site:.org]
(LinkFromDomain: ) - Domain Outbound Links Restricted Search (Contains:) Filetype Restrcited Search (IP:) - IP Address Restricted Search
Finds all pages the given domain links out to Narrows search results to pages linking to a document of the specified file type Shows sites sharing one IP
Find most relevant sites your competitor links out to
[linkfromdoamin:seomoz.or g seo]
Find pages linking to a specific document type containing relevant information [ip:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]
[contains:wma seo]
[ip:207.182.138.245]
address Restricts the results to documents containing (a) search term(s) in a page title Restricts the results to documents containing (a) search term(s) in the anchor text of backlinks pointing to a page Restricts the results to documents containing query word(s) in the body text of a page
(InTitle:) - Title Keyword Restricted Search
Find web pages using your keyword in the title
[intitle:seo]
(InAnchor:) Anchor Text Keyword Restricted Search
Find pages containing most links/most powerful links with the keyword in their anchor text
[inanchor:seo inanchor:company]
(InBody:) - Body Text Keyword Restricted Search
Find pages containing most relevant /best optimized body text
[inbody:seo]
A few possible extensions/filetypes:
(Filetype:) Filetype Restricted Search
Narrows search results to the pages that end in a particular file extension
pdf ( Adobe Portable Document Format) html or htm ( Hypertext Markup Language) xls ( Microsoft Excel) ppt ( Microsoft PowerPoint) doc (Microsoft Word)
[filetype:pdf]
(URL:) - URL Information Restricted Search (Location:) / (loc:)
Finds a specific document in MSN index Narrows search results to a
Find if the given URL is indexed by MSN Find geo-specific documents using your
[url:http://www.seomoz.org/ tools] [seo loc:AU]
specified location (multiple location options can be found under MSN advanced search) Narrows search results to terms contained in RSS or Atom feeds Narrows search results to pages linking to feeds that contain the specified keywords
keyword
(Feed:) - Feed Keyword Restricted Search
Find relevant feeds
[feed:seo]
(Hasfeed:) - Feed Keyword Restricted Search
Find pages linking to relevant feeds
[hasfeed:seo site:cnn.com]
Comparison of Advanced Search Operators Across Google, Yahoo! and MSN
Google Yahoo MSN/Live Search Term domain/ director y path Meaning Restricts search to a given domain/ directory
site: link: (partial report)
site:
site:
link:
URL
Searches for pages linking to a given page Searches for pages linking to a given domain (including deep links) Shows pages the domain links out to Searches for a given keyword in the file paths Searches for a given keyword in the page title
linkdomain
domain
linkfromdomain inurl: / allinurl: intitle: / allintitle: inurl: intitle: intitle:
domain kwd kwd
inanchor: / allinanchor:
inanchor:
kwd
Searches for pages that use the given keyword as the anchor text Searches for a given keyword in the page body text Restricts search to a given URL extension Searches for related sites and pages (based on cocitation) Inserts one or more words
intext:
inbody:
kwd
ext: / filetype:
originurlextension:
filetype:
file type domain/ URL
related: * info: cache: *
URL URL specific location identity code URL
Gives additional information about the URL Shows the saved copy of the page Narrows search results to the sites belonging to a particular territory Shows if the page was indexed by the SE Narrows search results to pages linking to a specified file type Shows sites sharing one IP address Narrows search results to terms contained in RSS or Atom feeds Narrows search results to pages linking to feeds that contain the given keywords
region:
location: / loc:
url:
url:
contains:
file type IP address kwd
ip:
feed:
hasfeed:
kwd
Other Engines & Query Sources
Google Blog Search allows for the following advanced search operators:
inblogtitle:keyword restricts search to blog titles blogurl:keyword restricts search to blog URLs inpostauthor:"Author Name" searches for posts written by a specified author link:http://www.domain.com returns blogs linking to the given page location:country or location:state restricts results to news originating from the given location source:"news source" returns news by the given news source site:mysite.com shows if your site is indexed by Google News
Google News provides for these advanced search operators:
Technorati lets you explore blog backlinks ("reactions") via its advanced search: http://technorati.com/blogs/www.blogdomain.com?reactions BlogPulse tracks blog mentions for any URL you specify. While being a good addition to Technorati blog reactions search, BlogPulse allows for better tracking options and also works for non-blog sites. Exalead offers a number of advanced search operations and a user-friendly advanced search: Operator Short Description Find any page backlinks (Link:) - Page Backlink Restricted Search (while it is by far not as good as Yahoo!'s (link:) operator, it can be a good additional source) SEO Usage Examples
Find most relevant backlinks of any page
[link:http://www.seomoz.org /blog seo]
(Site:) - DomainRestricted Search
Narrows a search to (a) specific domain(s)
Shows sites of a specific TLD [site:org] (no dot (.) before the TLD)
(InURL:) - URL Keyword Restricted Search
Narrows the results to documents containing (a) search term(s) in the URLs
Find web pages having your keyword in a file path.
[inurl:seo inurl:company ]
(InTitle:) - Title Keyword Restricted Search
Restricts the results to documents containing (a) search term(s) in a page title
Find web pages using your keyword in a page title
[intitle:(seo company)]
A few of possible extensions/ filetypes:
(Filetype:) Filetype Restricted Search
Narrows search results to the pages that end in a particular file extension
pdf ( Adobe Portable Document Format) html or htm ( Hypertext Markup Language) xls ( Microsoft Excel) ppt ( Microsoft PowerPoint) doc (Microsoft Word)
[filetype:pdf]
Narrows search results to a specified country (Country:) Country Restricted Search (multiple country options can be found under MSN advanced search) Narrows search results to documents modified before or after the set date (DD/MM/YYYY) Find geo-specific documents using your keyword [seo country:au ]
(After:) / (Before:) - Modified After/Before Restricted Search
Find new relevant pages
[seo after:12/07/2007]
Note 1: Enhance each of the above search operators with the advanced search options on the right. Examples below:
search only for blogs, commercial or non-commercial sites, forums set language preferences filter results by choosing the site’s related key term
e.g., search for forums linking to seomoz.org/blog relevant "seo". Note 2: Exalead allows for a few quite unique operators (e.g., phonetic spelling soundslike:(keyword) and approximate spelling - spellslike:(keyword)) but they seem to work improperly. Bloglines allows to search for recent blog posts, feeds, and citations and can be very effectively used for tracking brand name mentions: [domainname], [domain name], [domainname.com]. Summize is the real time Twitter conversation search. Two essential features make this search engine stand out: 1. It searches for live conversations by human beings 2. It has many unique search operators allowing to restrict search results by emotional coloring and conversation structure Operator (From:) - Tweet Author Restricted Search (To:) - Tweet Recipient Restricted Search (@) - Referencing Username Restricted Search (Near:) - Location Restricted Search Short Description Finds threads by a specified Twitter user Finds threads addressed to a specified Twitter user Finds Tweets referencing the specified username Finds Tweets sent near the specified location (or within XX miles of the specified location) Examples [seo from:sengineland] [seo to:techcrunch]
[search @mashable] [search near:seattle] [near:NYC within:15mi]
(Since:) / (Until:) - Tweet Date Restricted Search
Finds posts sent since / until the specified date (YYYY-MM-DD) Finds Tweets with positive / negative attitude (using these signs) Finds Tweets asking a question Finds Tweets linking to a (relevant) URL
[seo since:2008-06-25]
:) / :(
[icann :)]
? filter:links
[seo ?] [seo filter:links]
Valuable Search-Related Services on the Web
Yahoo! Site Explorer is an additional Yahoo! service that allows you to explore web pages indexed by Yahoo. The valuable SEO options it provides include:
Check any web page incoming links (an equivalent to Yahoo!'s [Link:] operator) from all pages from all pages excluding the currently checked domain (to exclude internal links) - an equivalent to Yahoo! [link:www.mysite.com/page -site:mysite.com] combined query from all pages excluding currently checked subdomain Check any domain incoming links (an equivalent to Yahoo!'s [LinkDomain:] operator) with the same options as above; Explore site subpages (an equivalent to Yahoo!'s [Site:] operator)
Note: Use FireFox plugins (e.g., SEO for Firefox Toolbar Extension and SEOquake) to get an exhaustive SEO report for each link and SEO Link Analysis to instantly see the backlink anchor text or "nofollow" link attribute usage.
The Google Trends tool currently offers two valuable services:
1. Search term trend research 2. Website traffic analysis Data sources: Google Trends "combines information from a variety of sources, such as aggregated Google search data, aggregated opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in consumer panel data, and other third-party market research." The Google Trends keyword service shows a particular search term search volume (relative to the total search volume) across various regions of the world, and in various languages. It allows for the following search operators:
[keyword1, keyword2] to compare two terms [keyword1 | keyword2] to check for either of the terms [keyword1 -keyword2] to exclude one of the terms [(key phrase) | keyword] to compare several search terms, one or more of which is/are multiword term(s) ["key phrase"] to search for an exact match (suitable only for two- and above word combinations)
The Google Trends for websites tool can be used to evaluate and compare site traffic. It also gives related sites and related search terms for any site/sites explored:
Compete.com is another valuable source for website US traffic information. Its data sources include "ISP data, ASP data, custom toolbars/desktop applications," etc. The tool provides the following insightful site statistics:
”people counts” - monthly traffic reach people’s “attention” - average time spent on site compared to overall time spent on the Internet by US people page views per visit
"velocity" - the average change in daily attention "average stay" - in minutes - average time spent on site by one visitor
Alexa is one of the oldest sources of valuable website information. The information it provides includes:
Website traffic reach (“how many unique users visited the site compared to overall Internet users measured by Alexa”) over the set period of time (1 week, 1 month, 3 and 6 months) Traffic distribution across different countries Related websites Sites linking back to the one being checked (for example, websites linking back to seomoz.org)
Alexa Data sources: "Alexa Toolbar users and data collected from other, diverse sources over a rolling 3 month period." Quantcast (also make sure to check the similar tool by MSN adCenter labs) provides detailed website US traffic and demographics stats:
Visitors’ gender distribution Visitors' age distribution Household income Ethnicity Education Geographic distribution (only for Quantcast "quantified publishers")
Closing: Employing Queries, Services & Tools for Direct ROI
Advanced search operators allow you to dig deeper into specific aspects of each search engine’s algorithm as well as your site SEO issues. Knowing what, where, and how to research is what makes you and your site stand out from the crowd of your competitors. While we attempted to list some most popular and useful ways to combine different search operators for various SEO tasks, there is still much room for creativity and ingenuity. Try to continuously brainstorm new ways to apply search engine tools to cover your needs. Combining different search operators and applying several SEO tools will make your search more focused and your research more efficient. Keep in mind that search operators should be combined wisely:
Some search operators cannot be combined by definition. For example, Google operators allinanchor:, allintitle:, and allinurl: suggest that everything that comes after them will be included in the operator search, thus by trying to combine them, you will get 0 results: [allintitle:search operators inurl:search] returns 0 results as Google searches for the exact match "search operators inurl:search" in the title of webpages and finds nothing. Page-specific search operators cannot be combined (e.g., Google's cache:, info: and related: operators and Yahoo and MSN's url: command can only be used in isolation). Some search operators can cancel one another, which might cause incorrect/insufficient data output (e.g., [site:google.com -inurl:google]). Remember to use boolean operators to yield more results. For example, [search site:.gov site:.edu] will naturally return 0 results because a site cannot have 2 TLDs (in this instance, .gov and .edu) at a time. Use the OR operator to get both .gov and .edu sites relevant to the term "search": [search site:.gov OR site:.edu].
While (advanced search) is a good way to collect information, online tools are great at organizing it (compare the results you get with Yahoo!'s linkdomain: operator and the user-friendly interface of the LinkDiagnosis tool, which is full of handy sorting and filtering options) and at representing the data in a clear, easily comprehensible way (look how vividly SEObrowser represents your page structure). SEO tools should also be used as time savers, as they provide instant access to many other online tools and resources (SEO For Firefox Extension is a great example here). There are 3 essential parts of conducting online research and applying advanced search and SEO tools:
Combine all available tools and query sources to get exhaustive results
Organize your findings effectively using tables and lists Refine your research (over time) with alternative information sources and internal site analytics