Using Page Specific Web Search Operators

< Google Manual

Now we look at the site specific search operators. These don’t serve the same purpose as the other operators but three out of four are useful nonetheless.

• info:
• link:
• related:
• cache:

Make sure that there is no space after any of these operators.

Retrieve Page Information with info:

The operator info: will present some information that Google has about the web page whose URL you specify in its value. For example, the following query will show information about the Google homepage.

[info:www.google.com]

Boring. Doesn’t show anything of value. Maybe Google has some future plans for this.

This functionality is also accessible by typing the web page URL directly into a Google search box.

Search the Saved Cache Page with cache:

Google stores on its servers a cached copy of each page it has indexed. So, if a site is down, or the page has ceased to exist, you will be able to still view the cached version of the page. This is done with the cache: operator.

Start your query with cache: followed by the page whose cache you wish to view. For example, the following will show the cached page of drudgereport.com:

[cache:drudgereport.com]

You can include words that you want Google to highlight in the cached page by listing them after the web page name. For instance, adding “population” will show the cached content with the word “population” highlighted.

[cache:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California population]

This functionality is also accessible by clicking on the “Cached” link for any page listed on Google’s search results page.

Search for Pages with Links to a Web Page

The link: operator will list web pages that have links to the specified web page. For instance, the following query will list web pages that have links pointing to the brainboost.com homepage.

[link:www.brainboost.com]

Search for Similar Pages

The related: operator will list web pages that are similar to a specified web page. For instance, the following will list web pages that are similar to the e*trade homepage.

[related:www.etrade.com]

This functionality is also accessible by clicking on the “Similar Pages” link on Google’s results page.

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