Search Engine

Search engines are a powerful tool and particularly useful for conducting OSINT research. By entering specific operators along with relevant keywords, you can quickly discover a vast amount of publicly available data about individuals or organizations that may be of interest, such as an individuals private or personal information, images, professional background, and affiliations with specific groups or organizations.

List of search engines:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines

Operators/Syntax:
bruceclay.com/blog/bing-google-advanced-search-operators
duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/syntax

Basic Operators

Google Bing Description
site: site: Restricts the search to pages within a particular domain and all its subdomains.

Examples:
site:reddit.com wgu c95
site:reddit.com "c958 calculus"
site:reddit.com c958 calculus AND "professor leonard" AND
site:reddit.com c958 calculus OR "professor leonard" OR
'heath adams" the * mentor * (wildcard)
site:tesla.com password filetype:pdf filetype
site:tesla.com filetype:docx
"tesla.com" filetype:xlsx pass
sites:tesla.com -www (subdomains, remove www)
sites:tesla.com -www -forum
"heath adams" -thecybermentor -mentor (remove items)
"heath adams" intext:password intext
"heath adams" inurl:password inurl
"heath adams" intitle:password intitle

Google Advanced Search:
google.com/advanced_search
google.com Tools (on right side) -> Any time / All results

Search Engines/Websites

Subsections of Search Engine

Google Guide

Basic Examples

This Search Finds Pages Containing
biking Italy The words biking and Italy.
recycle steel OR iron Information on recycling steel or recycling iron.
“I have a dream” The exact phrase I have a dream.
salsa –dance The word salsa but NOT the word dance.
Louis “I” Franc Information about Louis the First (I), weeding out other kings of France.
castle ~glossary Glossaries about castles, as well as dictonaries, lists of terms, terminology, etc.
fortune-telling All forms of the term, whether spelled as a single word, a phrase, or hyphenated.
define:imbroglio Definitions of the word imbroglio from the Web.

Calculator

Operators Meaning Type Into Search (& Results)
+ – * / basic arithmetic 12 + 34 - 56 * 7 / 8
% of percentage of 45% of 39
^ or ** raise to a power 2^5 or 2**5
old units in new units convert units 300 Euros in USD, 130 lbs in kg, or 31 in hex.
Operators Meaning Type Into Search Results
city1 city2 Book flights. sfo bos Book flights from San Francisco (SFO) to Boston (BOS).
site: Search only one website or domain. Halloween site:www.census.gov Search for info on Halloween gathered by the US Census Bureau.
[#]..[#] Search within a range of numbers. Dave Barry pirate 2002..2006 Search for Dave Barry articles mentioning pirates written in these years.
filetype: Find documents of a filetype. Form 1098-T IRS filetype:pdf Find the US tax form 1098-T in PDF format.
ext: Find documents of a filetype. Form 1098-T IRS ext:pdf Find the US tax form 1098-T in PDF format.
link: Find linked pages, show pages that point to URL. link:warriorlibrarian.com Find pages that link to Warrior Librarian’s website.

Specialized Information Queries

Operators Meaning Type Into Search Results
book (or books) Search full-text of books. book Ender’s Game Show book-related information. No colon needed after book.
define, what is, what are Show a definition for a word or phrase. define monopsony, what is podcast Definition for monopsony and podcast. No colon after them.
define: Provide definitions for words, phrases, and acronyms. define:kerning Find definitions for kerning.
movie: Find reviews and showtimes. movie: traffic Search for information about this movie, including reviews, showtimes, etc.
stocks: Given ticker symbols, show stock information. stocks: goog ind Google’s current stock price.
weather Given a location (US zip code or city) weather Seattle WA, weather 81612 Show the current weather and forecast. No colon after weather.

Alternative Query Types

Operators Meaning Type Into Search Results
cache: Display Google’s cached version of a web page. cache:www.irs.gov Show cached version of the US IRS home page.
info: Find info about a page. info:www.theonion.com Find information about The Onion website.
id: Find info about a page. id:www.theonion.com Find information about The Onion website.
related: List web pages that are similar or related. related:www.healthfinder.gov Websites related to the Healthfinder website.

Search for Sites where Query Words Appear

Operators Meaning Type Into Search Results
allinanchor: All query words must appear in anchor text of links to the page. allinanchor:useful parenting sites Pages that are called useful parenting sites by others.
inanchor: Terms must appear in anchor text of links to the page. restaurants Portland inanchor:kid-friendly Portland restaurants where links to the page say “kid friendly.”
allintext: All query words must appear in the text of the page. allintext:ingredients cilantro chicken lime Search for recipes with these three ingredients.
intext: The terms must appear in the text of the page. Dan Shugar intext:Powerlight Pages mentioning Dan Shugar and his company Powerlight is included in the text.
allintitle: All query words must appear the text of the page. allintitle: Google Advanced Operators Pages with titles containing “Google,” “Advanced,”, and “Operators”.
intitle: The terms must appear in the title of the page. movies comedy intitle:top ten Pages with the words movie and comedy that includes top ten in the title.
allinurl: All query words must appear in the URL. allinurl:pez faq Search for pages containing the words pez & faq in the URL.
inurl: The terms must appear in the URL of the page. pharmaceutical inurl:investor Search for pages in which the URL contains the word investor.

Restrict Search to Google Groups

Operators Meaning Type Into Search Results
author: Find Groups messages from the specified author. flying author:Hamish author:Reid Search for Hamish Reid’s articles on flying.
group: Find Groups messages from the specified newsgroup. ivan doig group:rec.arts.books Postings about Ivan Doig in the group ec.arts.books.
insubject: Find Groups messages containing crazy quilts in the subject. nsubject:“crazy quilts” Articles containing crazy quilts in the subject line.

Restrict Search to Google News

Operators Meaning Type Into Search Results
location: Find News articles from sources located in the specified location. queen location:uk Find British news articles on the Queen.
source: Find News articles from specified sources. peace source:ha_aretz Show articles on peace from the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz.

About This Cheat Sheet: For more tips, tricks, & examples, visit GoogleGuide.com. By Nancy Blachman & Jerry Peek who don’t work for Google & Tasha Bergson-Michelson.

Bing Google Operators

bruceclay.com/blog/bing-google-advanced-search-operators

Google Bing Result
allinanchor:
allintext: Returns webpages with all the words somewhere on the webpage.
allintitle: Finds pages that include all query words as part of the indexed title tag.
allinurl: Finds a specific URL in the search engine’s index. Also can be used to find pages whose URLs contain all the specified words.
AROUND() Finds webpages with words that are in a certain proximity to one another.
cache: Shows the version of the webpage from Google’s cache.
contains: Finds webpages that contain links to a particular type of file (such as pdf, mp3). This function is unique to Bing.
define: Presents a dictionary definition.
ext: ext: Returns only webpages with the file extension you specify (such as htm). Note: Bing includes this operator in its current list, but our tests could not produce reliable results.
filetype: filetype: Finds results of a single type only (such as pdf).
filetype: filetype: Finds results of a single type only (such as pdf).
feed: Finds RSS / Atom feeds on a site for the search term.
hasfeed: Finds webpages with RSS / Atom feed on the search term.
in This converts units of measure like temperature, currency, etc.
info: Presents some information that Bing has about a webpage such as related pages from the site, external pages talking about the page, and related results. This operator is not listed on the current Bing documentation, but our tests show that it continues to work.
intext: Shows pages that contain a specific word in their body text.
intitle: intitle: Finds pages that include a specific word as part of the indexed title tag.
inurl: Finds pages that include a specific keyword in their indexed URLs.
allinurl: Finds a specific URL in the search engine’s index. Also can be used to find pages whose URLs contain all the specified words.
inanchor: Finds webpages that use a specified keyword as anchor text in a link from the page.
inbody: Finds webpages that use a specified keyword in the body section of the page.
ip: Finds sites hosted by a certain IP address.
language: Find webpages in a specified language.
location: Finds webpages from a certain country / region.
map: Finds a map result for the query.
movie: Finds information about movies.
OR OR Finds webpages that have either query when used in between two queries. Must be capitalized to work correctly.
prefer: Adds emphasis to a search term to refine the results further.
related: Finds related sites to the domain you input.
site: site: Restricts the search to pages within a particular domain and all its subdomains.
source: Finds news results from a specific news source in Google News.
stocks: Displays stock information for a specific ticker symbol.
url: Checks if a domain is in the Bing index.
weather: Shows weather for a specific location.
***** ***** Acts like a wildcard that can take the place of any word or phrase. Example: tallest * in the world
– – Excludes results that contain the word following the minus sign. Place this operation at the end of your search query.
” “ ” “ Finds instances of the exact text within the quotation marks everywhere it appears in the search engine’s index.
@ Searches social media for a certain query when put in front of the word(s).
$ Searches for a price when put in front of the query.
# Searches for hashtags.
… Searches a range of numbers when put in between two numbers.
() Finds or excludes webpages with a group of words contained within the parentheses.

Duckduckgo Syntax

duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/syntax

Search Operators

Example Result
cats dogs Results about cats or dogs
"cats and dogs" Results for exact term “cats and dogs”. If no or few results are found, we’ll try to show related results.
~"cats and dogs" Experimental syntax: more results that are semantically similar to “cats and dogs”, like “cats & dogs” and “dogs and cats” in addition to “cats and dogs”.
cats -dogs Fewer dogs in results
cats +dogs More dogs in results
cats filetype:pdf PDFs about cats. Supported file types: pdf, doc(x), xls(x), ppt(x), html
dogs site:example.com Pages about dogs from example.com
cats -site:example.com Pages about cats, excluding example.com
intitle:dogs Page title includes the word “dogs”
inurl:cats Page URL includes the word “cats”

If advanced syntax was used in a query and no results are found, we’ll try to show related results.

Please note: we are aware some of our advanced syntax isn’t operating 100% correctly on all queries and are actively working on it. It is unfortunately a non-trivial issue given we get our private results from a variety of sources.

Search Directly on Other Sites

  • Use \ to go to directly to the first search result. For example, \futurama.
  • Use ! to search other sites’ search engines directly. Remember, though, because your search is actually taking place on that other site, you are subject to that site’s policies, including its data collection practices. For example, [!a blink182](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=!a blink182) searches Amazon.com for blink182. There are thousands of sites covered!
  • Add !safeon or !safeoff to the end of your search to turn on and off safe search for that search.