Google Hacking ( Advanced Google Search ) ~ The 9ja Geek's Journal

Google remains the most widely used search engine in the world but there's more to google search than what most people know. Advanced google search (which many refer to as google hacking) gives you what you want more easily. This google search tricks are quite easy and they've been in existence for quite a long time but I'm pretty sure not all internet users are familiar with the strings (also known as operators). We're not doing anything illegal, google officially have this listed.

1. define:
You can use google as your dictionary anytime with this simple string. An example is define: idiosyncrasy . This example searches the internet for all definitions of the word 'idiosyncrasy'.

2. site:
With this search string, you can limit your search to just a site. An example is make money online site:doncaprio.com. This search string allows you to search all posts on this blog relating to making money online.

3. related:
This particlar string gives you all sites relating to the one in your search query. related:www.google.com lists all similar to google.com

4. filetype:
This becomes useful when searching for a particular file type. Assuming you're a webmaster looking for pdf ebooks on search engine optimization, running a google search that looks like SEO tips filetype:pdf will get you loads of pdf documents written on that.

5. cache:
This can be useful when you intend to see what a page looks like in the pages. it searches google's cache for your query. It can be of use when a site is down or refuses to load. An example is cache:www.doncaprio.com. The cached pages shown might be different from the present one since the content on the homepage is always changing.

6. weather:
This gives you the weather of your specified city. Google shows the weather condition as the first result if it recognizes the city but all you will have sre links to other pages if the city isn't recognized. An example is weather:lagos Nigeria

7. allintitle:
You can limit your search to only sites having your specified terms in their titles. Let's assume you're searching for cgi proxy servers, you can simple input allintitle:start using cgiproxy and most of the sites on the search result page will definitely have your query as their title.

8 intitle:
This is similar to allintitle: with only a slight difference. Searching for paypal unsupported intitle:Nigeria returns pages with Nigeria in their titles and paypal unsupported anywhere in the document or web page.
Note that allintitle:start using cgiproxy is the same as intitle:start intitle:using intitle:cgiproxy

9. allinurl:
You can specify parameters in the url of search results with this operator. allinurl:cgi bin nph proxy cgi will return cgi proxy servers since the strings specified in the search query are found in cgi proxy sites url.

10. inurl:
It's almost the same as allinurl:
Note that allinurl:cgi bin nph proxy cgi is the same as inurl:cgi inurl:bin inurl:nph inurl:proxy inurl:cgi

11. allintext:
You can specify parameters in the text of results with this operator.Only pages with the specified terms will be returned in search results. allintext:nokia cooker nfe core navifirm will return only pages containing the specified terms.

12. intext:
Almost the same as above with little variation as explained in 10 and 11.

13. ~
This can be used to find synonyms and words relating in meaning to your search query. Searching for ~image ~designer will return pages with these exact words and similar terms such as graphic design, photo designing, etc.

There are several others and there are speculations that certain google operators can be used to find passwords and other sensitive information online but such hack tricks can't be contained in the body of this blog posts. The tips above are only to enhance your google search. Please share it if it helps.