Google Search URL parameters cheat sheet
I've been playing around with the URL parameters Google has to offer a lot lately, mostly after the de-personalized search stuff. I've now built a list of these parameters and created a PDF cheat sheet file with all of them in there. Included in this PDF are links to the documentation for the values some of these parameters can hold.
This is a rough version, so I'd love to hear your comments on how to improve this cheat sheet!
PDF Other posts you might like:
36 Responses to “Google Search URL parameters cheat sheet”
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by André Scholten on 2 July, 2007 at 23:21
What about "meta", what does that parameter do? I can see it's included in (for example) the Google Image Search link, but why?
by Richard Hearne on 3 July, 2007 at 00:05
Cool
Now we just need to figure out all the accepted values that go with these. A couple of examples might be useful also.
Thanks Joost, this is going to be really handy.
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by Joost de Valk on 3 July, 2007 at 07:17
Richard: yeah perhaps I'll make a page out of it as well with some examples...
by Ulco on 3 July, 2007 at 15:43
How about:
start=
channel=
ibd=
client=
I believe there's a couple more but this should keep you busy for a bit ;-)
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by Peter van der Graaf on 3 July, 2007 at 17:28
Hi Joost,
Don't you think it is about time Google explained all URL variables in one cheatsheet themselves? Don't they have such a page or just haven't I found it yet?
by JohnMu on 3 July, 2007 at 17:38
Some of these already get processed by my Google referrer statistics tool described at http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=51682
One that I couldn't understand was "sa" - do you have any idea?
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by Joost de Valk on 3 July, 2007 at 18:54
@ulco: I'll add them in the next version.
@Peter: yeah they should...
@JohnMu: I'll find out! :)
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by Bashar on 4 July, 2007 at 09:14
Cool. Thanks a lot.
HTML Version of it would be cool as well for your site I guess.
You may have missed this on Google Images: imgtype=face
to get only faces. Thanks to Luis von Ahn :)
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by Joost de Valk on 4 July, 2007 at 10:21
@Bashar: yeah i'll be creating an HTML version as well :)
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by anonymous on 4 July, 2007 at 22:16
I created one on google docs here; it would look nicer as a writely document, but the tables on writely are pretty flaky.
by Cristina Mailat on 5 July, 2007 at 11:02
I have tried an old google command, to search all linkbacks of the domain excluding the onpage links. Looks like google changed the query as I found many references with the old parameters which now does not seem to work anymore.
Let's say I want to find all backlinks for digg.com BUT without the onpage links what should I add to http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Adigg.com ?
by HSV on 5 July, 2007 at 14:45
from your pdf:
"specify filetype (pdf | ps | dwf | kml | kmz | xls | ppt | doc | rtf | swf)"
I dont know how many other types work, but maybe you want to add these to your list:
AI, RTF, TXT, ASP, PHP, CGI, HTM, HTML, LOG, INI, JS, BAT
and now google for the complete list ;)
http://www.google.com/search?q=AI+RTF+TXT+ASP+PHP+CGI+HTM+HTML+LOG+INI+JS+PDF+DWF+KML+KMZ+SWF+BAT+XLS+PPT+RTF+google+filetype+OR+%22file+type%22&num=100&btnG=Search
Cheers
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by Hamlet Batista on 7 July, 2007 at 02:34
Joost,
Thanks for sharing, this is very handy, I was looking for ways to mine more information out of my search engine referral logs.
Besides scrapping and mining logs, what other practical use can you think of?
by anonymous on 10 July, 2007 at 06:00
Hamlet, it can be used to build a bot to emulate random people clicking your pages in the serps, which is rumored among black-hats to improve your ranking and correlation, especially if it's 'mysite.com keyword-i-want-to-associate-my-site-with'
by Tracy@SEO on 10 July, 2007 at 23:21
I think Google has all in its help section..
by Ontario Emperor on 6 August, 2007 at 19:38
Neither imgtype=face or imgtype=news appear to be documented in Google's help.
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by Marita on 15 December, 2007 at 03:01
Hello,
you can also use the date restriction for past day
(d) month (m) and year (y) which comes in handy when searching for seasonal keywords.
Not sure if you all already know about this one; I use allinanchor search for back links with relevant keywords
allinurl:keyword phrase
allintitle:keyword phrase
allintext:keyword phrase
by David on 8 January, 2008 at 20:51
Gret cheat sheet!
Just wanted to point to another pretty sophisticated use of syntax from the old Google Answers site:
https://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=565252
Tricky Google Search Syntax Needed
Should be of interest to folks here.
David
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by Torsten Kammeyer on 5 June, 2008 at 23:51
Great sheet! Good work! Love the list!
JohnMu: I've been thinking about the "sa" part, and it could be something about the source of action. N could be a Normal Navigation, X could be cross navigation (for "Search related to: ") etc.
Some parameters missing:
oi
resnum
ct
cd
revid
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by ryan on 11 September, 2008 at 19:30
@Joost de Valk:
u suck