BACK TO BASICS: Researching with Search Engine Operators

by: Eileen Kowalski, October 2004

Researching a search engine algorithm is kind of like atomic research. The search engine algorithm is a black box that you cannot see inside of, so you can only formulate theories about a specific algorithm by testing its behavior. This is why it is so important to know all of the different search engine operators and how they work. In this article, we will investigate search engine operators and how you can use them to enhance your search engine optimization efforts.

Boolean Search Operators

Boolean operators are really useful for investigating how your competition uses keywords on the page. The basic Boolean search operators are AND, OR and NOT:

• AND or + yields results that contain both of the keywords on the page. Since all of the major engines automatically search for all of the words you enter into the search field, the AND operator is usually unnecessary. If you want to find pages that contain keywords as a phrase, you should put quotation marks around your keywords ("keyword1 keyword2").
• OR yields results that contain at least one of the keywords on the page. The OR operator is good to use when you are searching for more than one keyword and searching without an operator yields no results.
• NOT or − yields results that contain one keyword but exclude the other keyword. This operator is especially useful to see which competitors are not using specific keyword combinations which you can then target.

Many search engines have included AND & NOT on their lists of stop words, or words that are excluded from your search. We recommend using +, -, OR and quotation marks to investigate specific keyword combinations in Google, Yahoo, MSN and Gigablast.

Advanced Search Engine Operators

However, advanced search operators are what really allow you to dig deeper into specific aspects of each search engine’s algorithm. For example, if you are focusing on your link campaign, competitive research using the link: operator is essential. At SEOToolSet, we have aggregated all of the data that we could find on search engine operators and checked every operator to make sure it still works. We have also included some ideas on how to use these operators in your SEO efforts. Remember that these are just suggestions and are not the official use of any of the operators below. The table of search engine operators listed below is current as of October 2004. We will do our best to keep it updated, especially as a whole new range of operators come out with MSN (hopefully). If you know of any operators that should be on this list, please e–mail them to ekowalski@bruceclay.com and she will add them to this page.

Plus, Yahoo has additional feature: and region: operators that let you search for a keyword within a website with certain features or inside a specific region.

Official Search Engine Operator Pages

Most search engines list advanced operators on their websites, just not to the extent that we have listed them above. If you have have never worked with advanced operators before, you should definitely check out:

• Yahoo’s search operators
• Google’s advanced search operators
• and Gigablast’s advanced search options

for examples and searching tips directly from the search engines.