From kids to the old, everybody searches and search engines provide search tips to help searchers get more relevant result.
But how many of those search tips are you using? There are some tips very useful especially for Internet marketers and web masters. I've summarized those tips and explained how those search tips can be helpful for Internet Marketers in this article.
Although I'm writing this article for Internet Marketers, the usage of these tips applies are not restricted only for them.
Suppose you want to write a web page, find or create a web site about 'Internet Marketing Blog.' You may want to know or should know :-) what's going on about 'Internet Marketing Blog' on the net. So, you'll open your favorite search engine, type internet marketing blog and hit enter.
What do you get?
You'll have search engine result pages (SERPs) that includes all three terms plus those includes only two of them or one of them. This is not what you wanted.
1. How to make SERPs include all three terms?
Use plus sign in front of each search term. That is, type; +internet +marketing +blog . This applies all search engines.
Now you may wonder is it possible to have the SERPs including internet marketing but not blog?
2. How to make SERPs exclude a certain term?
Use minus sign in front of search term you want to exclude. That is, type; +internet +marketing -blog . You'll see the web sites that include both internet and marketing but not blog. This applies all search engines.
Going back to the starting point, the above two tips are still not sufficient to your purpose: getting information about "Internet Marketing Blog." Say, you wanted the exact phrase.
3. How to make SERPs include the exact phrase?
Use quotation mark. That is, type; "internet marketing blog". This applies all search engines. Many searchers know this tip and it's especially important for Internet marketers when they want to know how many competitors are out there.
4. How to make SERPs show the pages that include search terms in the title?
Type; intitle:"internet marketing blog" for Google and Teoma.
Type;title:"internet marketing blog" for AltaVista, AllTheWeb and MSN.
This tip is powerful if you want to write web content about your targeted keyword. The benefits are :
* You'll know which web sites have the pages that compete you.
* You'll find what are they doing in their pages.
* As a consequence, you'll know what you can learn from them and more importantly you'll find what they are missing. Hence, you can find the way to beat them.
5. How to make SERPs show only PDF file?
Suppose you want to offer a free e-book, say "Greatest Marketing Secrets" which is in PDF format, you may want to know how many web sites are offering this free e-book.
In Google can this be easily done by typing "greatest marketing secrets" filetype:pdf. You'll see how many web sites are offering that e-book and which web sites as well. Google has an ability to show another 12 non HTML file, such as Word, Lotus files.
For Yahoo!, digging into advanced search tips link, you can achieve similar result.
6. How to know whether your newly uploaded page is listed on search engines?
Type; allinurl:yourhome.com/uploaded.html or site:yourhome.com/uploaded.html in Google.
For AltaVista, Yahoo! Search, MSN, Excite and Northern Light, use url instead of allinurl. But unlike Google, you may have to place http:// in front of domain name in other search engines. For AllTheWeb and Lycos (for AllTheWeb results only) use url.all, and for Inktomi originurl.
If you don't see any result or see something like "... did not match any documents", try again include "www" in front of domain. Both result can be different. If both results fail to show matching page, it means that page is not listed yet.
7. How to make SERPS show only in certain web site?
Suppose you want to see the pages includes exact keyword phrase "internet marketing blog" within a certain web site, you can achieve this by typing "internet marketing blog" site:anyhome.com in Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN, Excite and Netscape. For Altavista, use host instead of site, for AlltheWeb and Lycos use url.host and for Inktomi domain. You may use this tip to figure out what your competitor is doing with this keywords.
8. How to know how many pages of your sites are listed?
The search tip 7 can be extended for this purpose.
That is, type: yourhome site:yourhome.com in Google. This shows all the indexed pages in yourhome.com because all your pages include "yourhome". For other search engines use appropriate search command, for example, host instead of site in Altavista.
9. How to know which web sites linked your site?
You may wonder which web sites are linking to your site. To find out which web sites and how many, type; link:yourhome.com in Google, Yahoo! Search, and Altavista. But you may have to place http:// in front of domain name for the search engines other than Google.
For Inktomi use linkdomain instead of link and for AlltheWeb use link.all.
10. How to know when search engine crawled your site?
One way to know this is to see log file on your server. But what if you want to check how often the 'spider' crawl your competitor's site?
Every search engine spider takes a snapshot of the web sites when it visited. And it records the date when it takes a snapshot. Because of this you can know when the spider crawled your site or your competitor's site.
Type the search command explained in search tip no. 8, for example, yourhome site:yourhome.com, and then you'll see the SERPs listing your web pages. In the result page, you'll see "Cached" or "Cached Page" link for each page. Choose one of them, click it and then you'll be leaded to the snapshot of that page. Around top, you may find the date when it was took and that's the date when the spider crawled your site.
Now you have ten search tips. Some of them you already knew and some of them you might not recognize. Hope you find some tips that are of help.
Ryen Kim is an MBA, specialized in marketing research and analysis. His current focus is the "Affiliate Business" as a work-at-home scheme. He's running Home Based Affiliate Business.