How to Search Within a Website Using Google

In today’s digital world, Google has become an indispensable life hack. 

Recent statistics show that Google handles 8.5 million searches every day. Each person searches 3-4 times.

Google also constantly updates its algorithm to provide its users with the best and most relevant results, enhancing the user experience, saving time, and, most importantly, reducing frustration.

However, if you want to find a specific piece of information within a particular website or explore their web pages covering a specific topic, you may end up in a puzzling situation, if you aren’t sure about how to pinpoint what you want.

Whether you are a website owner or an SEO wanting to watch your competitors’ websites closely, knowing advanced site search techniques can save a lot of time and effort.

In this blog, I will tell you the exact steps to search for a website using Google. Before that, we will start with what site search is. 

Let’s dive deep.        

What is Site Search?

A site search is searching a single website using specific keywords for a specific product, service, or information.

Suppose you have visited the site previously and explored a specific page but are unaware of how to find it instead of scouring through the entire website. In that case, you can easily find the information you want using the site search.

Here are the steps you can follow to perform a basic site search:

Step 1: Go to Google.com.

Step 2: Enter “site:” followed by the website URL. (Don’t leave any space after the semicolon)

Step 3: Click “Enter” to begin the search.

Now, you’ll be shown all the pages on that website.

When you use this search operator – “site:” – you instruct Google to show results only from the domain, URL, or URL prefix.

Benefits of Site Search

By now, you might partially know the benefits of using site search. Let’s now explore them in more detail:

Save Time

Site search saves time and enables you to instantly find the results you’re looking for.

By following the site search, including the keywords, you can collect results faster than crawling page by page.

As a business owner, using site search can help you easily identify articles or link-building opportunities to maximize your SEO efforts.

Using site search, you can also perform competitor research, which will help you understand their marketing strategy. 

Even if you’re conducting research, Google’s site search can make your research process much easier by showing you helpful pages straight out of the gates.

Find Better References

When writing content, you need a strong reference to support your perspective.

Performing a site search on Google can pull up all the relevant information available on the website, providing you with better resources. 

By searching a credible and reliable website, you can quickly find authoritative information relevant to your topic and gain more insight into your subject matter.

Personalized Results

Since you have interacted with the website and done searches, the search engine may have learned from your behavior and adjusted its results.

So, when you search a site, the search engine will provide personalized results tailored to your interests and preferences.

This helps improve your overall user experience.

Find mixed content

The site searches are very helpful in tracking mixed or blocked content.

You can check the blocked pages or use mixed content simply by entering the URL and using the excluding operator. (I will explain how to perform the exclude operator below.)

Based on that, you can make the necessary changes and get the most essential pages live.

Advanced Search Using Site: Operator

Now, you know how to search using the site: operator and its benefits. Let’s now dive deep and learn about the other operators that you can use to make your searches efficient and easy:

Searching for Specific Phrases

When you’re looking for something specific on a website, then using the specific phrase along with site search will save you time and make your search more efficient.

Let’s say you’re looking for a link-building service on our Stan Venture site. So, instead of scouring the entire website, you can find our service page using specific search phrases.

To search for specific pages using specific phrases, follow:

site:example.com “exact keyword”

This is how it will look like – site:stanventures.com “link building”

Using the quotation mark instructs the search engine to show the page containing the exact phrase or keyword. This way, you can end up only with relevant results.

Excluding Certain Terms

You can shortlist the results by excluding certain term operators and get more precise results.

Use this option to find mixed or blocked content.

To search for specific pages excluding certain terms, follow:

site:example.com “exact keyword” -exclude term

For example, site:stanventures.com “link building” -internal link.

By adding a “-” before the excluded term, I exclude information about internal links. This method collects information about link building while skipping pages that contain content related toi nternal links.

Combining Multiple Terms

If you’re unsure about the search terms, you can use the multiple terms or phrases in the site search command to find the results you’re looking for.  

When applying this operator, add an “OR” command between the terms you use to land on the relevant pages.

To search for specific pages excluding certain terms, follow:

site:example.com “Term 1” OR “Term 2”

For example, site:stanventures.com “SEO service” OR “white label”

Using Date Ranges

Using date ranges helps you find pages that have been published within a dedicated time frame.

So, using specific date ranges, you can land up on relevant pages.

To find pages published within a specific date range:

site:example.com “topic” after:YYYY-MM-DD before:YYYY-MM-DD

For example, site:stanventures.com “white label seo” after:2023-08-20 before:2024-08-20

I am using the time frame between 20.08.2023 and 20.08.2024 to find pages about white-label SEO that have been published within that time frame.

Searching for Specific File Types

If you want to find a specific file type covering a specific subject, you can easily find it using the basic site search command followed by the topic and then the file type operator.

This is how it looks like site:example.com “topic” filetype:pdf 

Here is an example: site:hubspot.com “SEO” filetype:pdf 

Look at the results. Every link only shows the PDF file type.

You can use any file type you want, not just PDF files.

Using inurl: Operator

If you’re looking for a specific page and you know the keyword included in the URL, using the inurl: operator can instantly get you the exact result.

To find the exact page using inurl: operator, follow the:

site:example.com inurl:”keyword”

For example: site:stanventures.com inurl:”Content Marketing”

This shows results with the keyword “content marketing” in the URLs. This allows you to easily negate irrelevant results.

Using intitle: Operator

If you’re looking for a specific page and partially know the phrase in the title, then you can use the intitle: operator to get precise results.

To find the exact page using intitle: operator, follow the: 

site:example.com intitle:keyword

For example, site:stanventures.com intitle:”turnaround time”

By adding the intitle inside the quotation mark, you get the exact results that match the keywords.

See, I have got the exact result following the command.

Combining Operators

To refine your search results and obtain precise results, use the title and inurl operators to find the precise article. 

To find pages by combining operators, follow: 

site:example.com inurl:”keyword” intitle:keyword “topic”

For example, site:stanventures.com inurl:”content marketing” intitle:”strategies”

Now, the result page shows the exact page. This precision will save you time and improve your user experience.

Finding Recent Updates

If you want to stay current on industry trends, using the date operator, you can find the recent updates.

Unlike the date range, here, you will use only the after: operator.

To find the most recent updates on a topic:

site:example.com “topic” after:YYYY-MM-DD

For example, site:searchenginejournal.com “content marketing” after:2024-01-01.

Using this, I can see the recently published blogs on content marketing and keep myself updated.

Conclusion

Using site search can massively improve your efficiency and user experience by efficiently navigating the web.

Whether you’re looking for specific pieces of information, conducting research, or looking to stay updated with industry trends, you can collect precise information from any particular website using advanced search techniques.

Start applying advanced search tactics, enhance your online search experience, and get better results.