Guest Blogger: Chad Henderson

For those new to the SEO, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of information that needs to be collected so that your search marketing campaign is on target.  While we have discussed some issues such as creating page titles and keyword research in previous blogs, I wanted to take a second to mention some  tools available through the search engines that can be very useful.  These tools are built into the search engines and can provide a ton of great information that may help you in a variety of ways.  We’re focusing on Google, because well, it’s usually accepted as the industry benchmark, although tools in the other search engines are also available.

Search Operators
Known as search operators, these word based phrases (there are a few symbols that also help) added to the text of a Google search can provide a plethora of information that assist the planning or execution of an SEO campaign.  The basic syntax for their entry within the google search box (although some can be used within the search string and others have other exceptions) is:

{SEARCH OPERATOR}:{URL} OR {PHRASE}

Syntax examples of each are provided within each of the operators below.

site operator:

The site: search operator added to a search query tells Google to restrict results to those pages within the supplied domain.  The site: operator is also fantastic tool to evaluate the visibility or “indexability” of a site.  The search operator returns a listing of pages within a site that have been indexed by the search engine.  If you know that your site has 100 pages within it, and the search engines only see 1, then it is an indication that you have issues that need to be resolved.

Example: seminars site:www.tkg.com

(noting no space after site:,  resulting in pages about “seminars” within www.tkg.com)

link operator:

The link: operator reports the number and source of links coming into a specific URL, and is a general indicator of a sites popularity.  External link popularity, or the quantity and quality of links comining into your site, is an extremely important indicator of value to the search engines.

Example: link:www.tkg.com

cache operator:

The cache: operator displays the cached version of site as recorded in the index of the search engine.  “TEXT version only” options, available when viewing the cache: results, also give a good indication of the text (search engine favorite) that is seen on the page.  The absence of text in a cache: page result may be an indication of site limitations that would need resolved.

Example: cache:www.tkg.com

allinurl operator:

The allinurl: operator displays google results where the search phrase is contained within the url of the page.  When using multiple phrases, the Google results will display results where the phrase(s) occurs anywhere within the URL, in any order.

Example: allinurl: web marketing

info operator:

The info: search operator will report information that Google has about the specific domain you are inquiring about. Usually, the results are simply linked entry points into many of the other tools already mentioned.

Example: info:www.tkg.com

I am confident that these search operators will allow you to gather some great information about your site, or that of a competitor.