Advanced Google Search Techniques for Targeted Research

Search Operator Quick Reference example: site:ac.uk intext:"clinical research" filetype:pdf

Domain-Specific Searches

• SITE:ac.uk: Limit results to UK academic websites OTHERS INCLUDE:

  • SITE:.edu (United States educational institutions) other countries

  • SITE:.edu.au (Australian academic websites)

  • SITE:.edu.ca (Canadian academic websites)

  • SITE:.org (Non-profit organizations, including research foundations)

  • SITE:.gov (Government research institutions)

  • SITE:.int (International organizations)

  • This will search Multiple sites using OR: 

SITE:ac.uk OR SITE:edu.uk OR SITE:.edu OR SITE:.edu.au OR SITE:.edu.ca OR SITE:.org OR SITE:.gov OR SITE:.int

TOP TIP Use RELATED: for similar sites 

Content Filtering

• INTEXT: safety Find pages containing safety text

• INTITLE: Health Find page titles containing health text

• ALLINTEXT: Ensure ALL specified words appear in the text

• FILETYPE:Narrow results to specific file formats

  • FILETYPE:pdf PDF documents only

  • FILETYPE:docx Microsoft Word documents

  • FILETYPE:xlsx Excel spreadsheets

URL and Link Searches

• INURL: Find pages with specific words in the URL

• ALLINURL: Ensure ALL specified words appear in URL

• LINK: Find pages linking to a specific website

Exclusion and Precision

• So -medicine will exclude any search that has medicine

• "exact phrase": Search for exact word sequence or exact phrase would search for exact or phrase in the page

Example "clinical research" -medicine: Includes clinical research (exact phrase) & excludes medical context

Inclusion Operators

• +term: Forces inclusion of specific word

• AND: Requires all terms appear

• OR: Matches any terms

Combining Operators

Examples:

• SITE:ac.uk INTEXT:"clinical research" FILETYPE:pdf

• INURL:methodology ALLINTEXT: enhanced clinical FILETYPE:pdf

NB extra spaces between search operators do not affect the search. Search engines typically ignore multiple spaces. Google search is also case insensitive

Examples:

SITE:edu.uk    health    research

SITE:edu.uk  "clinical trials"

These are equivalent to:

SITE:edu.uk health research

SITE:edu.uk "clinical trials"

These will also all work the same (case insensitive)

site:ac.uk intext:"clinical research" filetype:pdf

SITE:AC.UK INTEXT:"CLINICAL RESEARCH" FILETYPE:PDF

Site:Ac.uk Intext:"Clinical Research" Filetype:Pdf

The search engine will process these identically, ignoring extra spaces and case.