Basics. "Google hacking" involves using advanced operators in the Google search engine to locate specific strings of text within search results.
Force an exact-match search. Use this to refine results for ambiguous searches, or to exclude synonyms when searching for single words.
Example: "steve jobs"
Search for X or Y. This will return results related to X or Y, or both. Note: The pipe (-) operator can also be used in place of "OR."
Examples: jobs OR gates / jobs - gates
Search for X and Y. This will return only results related to both X and Y. Note: It doesn't really make much difference for regular searches, as Google defaults to "AND" anyway. But it's very useful when paired with other operators.
Example: jobs AND gates
Exclude a term or phrase. In our example, any pages returned will be related to jobs but not Apple (the company).
Example: jobs ‑apple
Acts as a wildcard and will match any word or phrase.
Example: steve * apple
Group multiple terms or search operators to control how the search is executed.
Example: (ipad OR iphone) apple
Search for prices. Also works for Euro (€), but not GBP (£) 🙁
Example: ipad $329
A dictionary built into Google, basically. This will display the meaning of a word in a card-like result in the SERPs.
Example: define:entrepreneur
Returns the most recent cached version of a web page (providing the page is indexed, of course).
Example: cache:apple.com
Restrict results to those of a certain filetype. E.g., PDF, DOCX, TXT, PPT, etc. Note: The "ext:" operator can also be used—the results are identical.
Example: apple filetype:pdf / apple ext:pdf
Limit results to those from a specific website.
Example: site:apple.com
Find sites related to a given domain.
Example: related:apple.com
Find pages with a certain word (or words) in the title. In our example, any results containing the word "apple" in the title tag will be returned.
Example: intitle:apple
Similar to "intitle," but only results containing all of the specified words in the title tag will be returned.
Example: allintitle:apple iphone
Find pages with a certain word (or words) in the URL. For this example, any results containing the word "apple" in the URL will be returned.
Example: inurl:apple
Similar to "inurl," but only results containing all of the specified words in the URL will be returned.
Example: allinurl:apple iphone
Find pages containing a certain word (or words) somewhere in the content. For this example, any results containing the word "apple" in the page content will be returned.
Example: intext:apple
Similar to "intext," but only results containing all of the specified words somewhere on the page will be returned.
Example: allintext:apple iphone
Proximity search. Find pages containing two words or phrases within X words of each other. For this example, the words "apple" and "iphone" must be present in the content and no further than four words apart.
Example: apple AROUND(4) iphone
Find the weather for a specific location. This is displayed in a weather snippet, but it also returns results from other "weather" websites.
Example: weather:san francisco
See stock information (i.e., price, etc.) for a specific ticker.
Example: stocks:aapl
Force Google to show map results for a locational search.
Example: map:silicon valley
Find information about a specific movie. Also finds movie show times if the movie is currently showing near you.
Example: movie:steve jobs
Convert one unit to another. Works with currencies, weights, temperatures, etc.
Example: $329 in GBP
Find news results from a certain source in Google News.
Example: apple source:the_verge
Not exactly a search operator, but acts as a wildcard for Google Autocomplete.
Example: apple CEO _ jobs