Like a race car, there are special features if you want more control over your searches.

When you don't find what you're seeking, consider specifying more precisely what you want by using Google's Advanced Search feature, which

• is easy to use
• allows you to select or exclude pages with more precision than by only specifying search terms and basic operators (+, -. OR, ~, ..) in Google's standard search box.

You can specify most of the Advanced Search page options in a regular search box query by using advanced operators, i.e., query words that have special meaning to Google.

Want to see examples of advanced operators?

• Fill in the Advanced Search form.
• Now, look at the search box on the results page.
• Your query may now include special notation or special operators of the form operator:value.

Note: The colon following the operator name is mandatory.

[ head OR hair lice site:edu ]
[ link:www.pampmothersclub.org ]
[ allintitle: child safety ]
[ swimming lessons -adult ]
[ wills estate planning filetype:pdf ]

Advanced operators allow more flexibility than the basic operators and the Advanced Search form.

Find a page by its title.

Find pages whose titles contain the word "security," with the word "e-mail" on the text of the page not on microsoft.com.

Find crime reports in California.

Find pdf documents with information about financial planning for a child's college education.

Search non-commercial organizations, educational, and government sites.

Find every page on a site that is included in Google's index.

Learn about techniques used by hackers to exploit targets and find sensitive data and how to defend your own websites in Johnny Long's Google Hacking Mini-Guide.

The Google Guide Advanced Operator Quick Reference (classic.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html) provides a nice two-page summary of the search operators grouped by type.

There is an alphabetical list of the search operators in the Using Search Operators (Advanced Operators) section of Google Guide.

For tips on using one or more search operators in a query, see the last section in Using Search Operators (Advanced Operators).

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