Google Search Tricks That Still Work: Operators, Filters and Image Search

Most “Google search tricks” lists are full of operators that stopped working years ago. This guide sticks to what Google itself documents in Google Search Help and Google Search Central, and it says plainly which old tricks are gone. The three you’ll use most are quotation marks for an exact phrase, site: to search one website, and a minus sign to drop a word you don’t want.

One rule applies to every operator below: Google says not to put a space between the operator and your search term. Type site:youtube.com, not site: youtube.com.

Quick reference: Google search operators that still work

Operator	What it does	Example
"…"	Exact word or phrase	"tallest building"
site:	Results from one site, domain or URL prefix	site:youtube.com cat videos
-	Excludes a word	jaguar speed -car
filetype:	Results in one file type	photoelectric effect paper filetype:pdf
before:	Pages updated before a date	avengers endgame before:2019
after:	Pages updated after a date	avengers endgame after:2020
OR	Matches any of the words	miniature OR standard
..	Number range	$300..$500

The first six come from Google’s “Refine Google searches” help page. OR and the number range come from the hints on Google’s own Advanced Search page.

How to use each operator

Search for an exact phrase with quotes

Put a word or phrase inside quotation marks to search for that exact match:

"tallest building"

This is the single most useful trick when you’re troubleshooting. If you see an error message, paste it in quotes so Google looks for that exact wording, for example "windows update error 0x80070005". Our guide to Windows Update error 0x80070005 is a good example of the kind of page this finds. The same works for developer errors like fatal: not a git repository.

Search one website with site:

Add site: and a domain to get results only from that site:

site:youtube.com cat videos

According to Google Search Central, site: accepts a domain (which includes its subdomains) or a URL prefix, such as site:https://www.example.com/ramen tsukemen. You can also use it with a top-level domain, as Google’s Advanced Search page suggests for limiting results to .edu, .org or .gov.

Exclude a word with the minus sign

Put a minus sign directly in front of a word you don’t want:

jaguar speed -car

Google’s Advanced Search hint also shows that you can exclude a whole phrase by combining the minus sign with quotes, like -"Jack Russell".

Find a specific file type with filetype:

photoelectric effect paper filetype:pdf

Google Search Central explains that filetype: matches the file’s content type or its file extension, so it works for the file types Google can index, such as PDF.

Filter by date with before: and after:

These find pages updated before or after a date. You can use a year or a full date:

astronomy discovery before:2025/11/01
avengers endgame after:2020
avengers endgame after:2019-03-01 before:2019-03-05

The last example combines both to get a date range.

Match any of several words with OR

Type OR in capital letters between the words you’ll accept:

miniature OR standard

Search a number range with two periods

Put two periods between the numbers and add a unit:

10..35 lb
$300..$500
2010..2011

Operators Google has retired or flags as unreliable

Older articles still recommend these, so here’s what Google’s own documentation says:

• cache: Gone. Google’s documentation changelog for September 24, 2024 says the cache: operator no longer works in Google Search, and the documentation was removed.
• related: Gone. On July 18, 2023, Google removed related: from its operator documentation because it’s no longer supported.
• site: Still works, but not as a complete count. Google Search Central says the list of URLs it returns is not always exhaustive and may not include every indexed page.
• All operators: Google says operators are bound by indexing and retrieval limits. If you own a website and want to check whether a page is indexed, Google points to the URL Inspection tool in Search Console as the more reliable option.
• intitle: and similar: Google’s current help pages don’t document these. If you want words in the page title, use the Advanced Search page described below and set terms appearing to the page title instead.

Use Search tools instead of remembering syntax

You don’t have to memorize operators to narrow results. On a computer:

1. Search on google.com as usual.
2. Below the search box, choose the type of results you want, such as Images, News or Videos. Google’s help page notes that the Web filter shows text-based links.
3. Click Tools below the search box.
4. In the Tools bar, click a filter and select an option.
5. To remove filters, click Clear in the Tools bar.

For web results, Google lists tools such as Publish date, to find results based on when they were published, and Verbatim, to search for exact words or phrases. Google also notes that the tools you see change with your search, the type of results and your browser, and some are only available in some languages or when you’re signed in. So if you don’t see Verbatim, that’s expected.

Advanced Search

Advanced Search puts most operators into a simple form. Click Tools under the search box, then Advanced Search. You can also go straight to google.com/advanced_search. The form includes:

• All these words, This exact word or phrase, Any of these words and None of these words
• Numbers ranging from (the .. range)
• Language, Region and Last update
• Site or domain
• Terms appearing in the whole page, the page title, the web address or links to the page
• File type and Usage rights

Image search tricks

Search with an image

On a computer, Google Search Help describes three ways to search with a picture:

1. Upload a file: Go to google.com, click Search by image, choose Upload a file, select the image and click Open or Choose.
2. Drag and drop: Drag an image file from your computer into the Google search box.
3. Paste a link: Right-click an image on a website and choose Copy Image Address. On google.com, click Search by image, paste it into Paste image link and click Search.

In Chrome, you can skip all that: right-click an image on any page and choose Search with Google Lens to see results in a sidebar.

Tip: To search for something that’s only on your screen, such as an error dialog, take a screenshot and upload it. Our guide on how to print screen on Windows 11 shows where each method saves the file.

Filter image results

In Google Images, the search tools include Size, Color, Type, Time and Usage rights. Google Search Central also documents two image-only operators:

• imagesize: finds images of an exact size, written as width x height, for example imagesize:1500x1000.
• src: finds pages that use a specific image URL, which site owners can use to see where their images appear.

Quick answers and small habits

Google Search Help also recommends a few habits that make any search work better:

• Use the words a website would use. Search headache rather than my head hurts.
• Don’t worry about spelling or capitals. Google’s spell checker uses the most common spelling, and New York Times is the same search as new york times.
• Get quick answers. Search weather for your local forecast, put define in front of a word for its definition, type a sum like 3*9123 to calculate, or try 3 dollars in euros for a conversion.

Combine tricks for better results

Operators work together. A few examples using only documented operators:

"blue screen" site:microsoft.com
budget template filetype:pdf after:2025
laptop review -refurbished $300..$500

The first one is a good start when your PC crashes. If the blue screen names a stop code, search that exact code in quotes too; for the MEMORY_MANAGEMENT stop code, our memory management blue screen guide covers the fixes.

Start broad, then add one operator at a time. If results suddenly disappear, the last operator you added is usually too strict.

If it still doesn’t work

• Check for spaces. A space after the colon (site: example.com) breaks the operator.
• Use capitals for OR. The Advanced Search hint shows OR in capital letters.
• Don’t expect complete lists. site: and the other operators can miss pages that are indexed.
• Try Advanced Search or Tools. If an operator from an old tutorial does nothing, it may be one Google has retired, like cache: or related:.

For more time-saving habits, see our list of computer tricks, or browse the rest of Tech Tips.