Can anyone tell me what all the google search options are when researching a site? For example, I know site:yourdomain brings up all indexed pages and links:yourdomain will bring up all backlinks. What other options are there? What if I want to know the most recently cached page on my site. Is there a search option for that without having to check each page individually? Any help would be appreciated.
cache: If you include other words in the query, Google will highlight those words within the cached document. For instance, [cache:www.google.com web] will show the cached content with the word "web" highlighted. This functionality is also accessible by clicking on the "Cached" link on Google's main results page. The query [cache:] will show the version of the web page that Google has in its cache. For instance, [cache:www.google.com] will show Google's cache of the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "cache:" and the web page url. link: The query [link:] will list webpages that have links to the specified webpage. For instance, [link:www.google.com] will list webpages that have links pointing to the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "link:" and the web page url. This functionality is also accessible from the Advanced Search page, under Page Specific Search > Links. related: The query [related:] will list web pages that are "similar" to a specified web page. For instance, [related:www.google.com] will list web pages that are similar to the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "related:" and the web page url. This functionality is also accessible by clicking on the "Similar Pages" link on Google's main results page, and from the Advanced Search page, under Page Specific Search > Similar. info: The query [info:] will present some information that Google has about that web page. For instance, [info:www.google.com] will show information about the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "info:" and the web page url. This functionality is also accessible by typing the web page url directly into a Google search box. Other information needs define: The query [define:] will provide a definition of the words you enter after it, gathered from various online sources. The definition will be for the entire phrase entered (i.e., it will include all the words in the exact order you typed them). stocks: If you begin a query with the [stocks:] operator, Google will treat the rest of the query terms as stock ticker symbols, and will link to a page showing stock information for those symbols. For instance, [stocks: intc yhoo] will show information about Intel and Yahoo. (Note you must type the ticker symbols, not the company name.) This functionality is also available if you search just on the stock symbols (e.g. [ intc yhoo ]) and then click on the "Show stock quotes" link on the results page. Query modifiers site: If you include [site:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to those websites in the given domain. For instance, [help site:www.google.com] will find pages about help within www.google.com. [help site:com] will find pages about help within .com urls. Note there can be no space between the "site:" and the domain. This functionality is also available through Advanced Search page, under Advanced Web Search > Domains. allintitle: If you start a query with [allintitle:], Google will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the title. For instance, [allintitle: google search] will return only documents that have both "google" and "search" in the title. This functionality is also available through Advanced Search page, under Advanced Web Search > Occurrences. intitle: If you include [intitle:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the title. For instance, [intitle:google search] will return documents that mention the word "google" in their title, and mention the word "search" anywhere in the document (title or no). Note there can be no space between the "intitle:" and the following word. Putting [intitle:] in front of every word in your query is equivalent to putting [allintitle:] at the front of your query: [intitle:google intitle:search] is the same as [allintitle: google search]. allinurl: If you start a query with [allinurl:], Google will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the url. For instance, [allinurl: google search] will return only documents that have both "google" and "search" in the url. Note that [allinurl:] works on words, not url components. In particular, it ignores punctuation. Thus, [allinurl: foo/bar] will restrict the results to page with the words "foo" and "bar" in the url, but won't require that they be separated by a slash within that url, that they be adjacent, or that they be in that particular word order. There is currently no way to enforce these constraints. This functionality is also available through Advanced Search page, under Advanced Web Search > Occurrences. inurl: If you include [inurl:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the url. For instance, [inurl:google search] will return documents that mention the word "google" in their url, and mention the word "search" anywhere in the document (url or no). Note there can be no space between the "inurl:" and the following word. Putting "inurl:" in front of every word in your query is equivalent to putting "allinurl:" at the front of your query: [inurl:google inurl:search] is the same as [allinurl: google search].
a very thorough answer from yourihost. I'll just add as a footnote, that the ones you'll use most frequently are accessible with one click in google webmaster tools
Thank you so much yourihost. One last question: What if I wanted a list of all of the cached pages on my site, starting with the most recent? One reason I ask is because whenever I get emails about link exchanges, I get a lot of the same page requests, even if the page has no PR. I think they must be using some tool that tells them that the page is valuable. Most of the time they are recently cached pages. There may be more there looking at, but that's what I'm suspecting right now.
enjoy Google Guide to Searching http://www.google.com/notebook/public/10994812642363749232/BDQtXSwoQ4pbI678h Advanced Search Features Search Operators File Format filetype: Occurrences in the title of the page in the text of the page in the URL of the page in the links to the page allintitle: allintext: allinurl: allinanchor: Domain site: Similar related: Links link: Safesearch safesearch: The following table lists the search operators that work with each Google search service. Click on an operator to jump to its description — or, to read about all of the operators, simply scroll down and read all of this page. Search Service Search Operators Web Search allinanchor:, allintext:, allintitle:, allinurl:, bphonebook:, cache:, define:, filetype:, id:, inanchor:, info:, intext:, intitle:, inurl:, inlink:, phonebook:, related:, rphonebook:, safesearch:, site:, stocks:, Image Search allintitle:, allinurl:, filetype:, inurl:, intitle:, site: Groups allintext:, allintitle:, author:, group:, insubject:, intext:, intitle: Directory allintext:, allintitle:, allinurl:, ext:, filetype:, intext:, intitle:, inurl: News allintext:, allintitle:, allinurl:, intext:, intitle:, inurl:, location:, source: Froogle allintext:, allintitle:, store: