Search Query Generator

How to use the search query generator

Fill in only the fields you need and leave the rest empty. The preview updates as you type, and the generator handles the syntax for you: it quotes phrases, writes OR in capitals, wraps alternatives in parentheses, strips https:// and trailing slashes from sites, and leaves out any operator you didn't fill in. Below the tool, a table explains what each part of the finished query does.

When the query looks right, copy it, open it on Google, or send it to the Google Search URL Generator to run it as if you were searching from another country or in another language. Results differ by location, so that step matters for local SEO checks.

Not sure where to start? Pick a template such as PDFs on a site or Guest post opportunities, then replace the example site or topic with your own. If part of your query won't work as intended, a note under the preview says why and how to fix it.

Google search operators it supports

Google's web search help documents only a few operators: quotes, the minus sign, site:, filetype:, before: and after:. The rest still change results, but Google doesn't promise how they behave, so test them before you rely on them.

How to combine operators

• Spaces mean AND. Each term or operator you add narrows the search further. Google may still match related forms of unquoted words.
• No space after the colon. site:example.com works; site: example.com doesn't.
• OR goes in capitals. A lowercase or is just another word. OR binds more tightly than the spaces around it, so compost bin OR tumbler means compost plus either bin or tumbler.
• Parentheses keep groups readable. The generator wraps every OR group, as in (site:example.com OR site:example.org). Don't count on them to group AND terms, though: (compost bin) OR (worm farm) isn't reliably read as two alternatives. Use quoted phrases, as in "compost bin" OR "worm farm", or run two searches.
• Quote anything with spaces. That includes operator values, such as intitle:"write for us", and exclusions, such as -"free trial".
• Several sites need OR. Two site: operators without OR ask for pages on both sites at once, which returns nothing useful.

Operators that no longer work

Old cheat sheets still list these. Google has removed them or never properly supported them, and the generator shows a note if you type one:

• cache: stopped working when Google retired cached pages in 2024. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine is the usual substitute.
• related: was removed in 2023; Google said it hadn't worked well for some time.
• link: has not worked since 2017, when Google said so publicly. The Links report in Search Console shows links to your own site.
• info: no longer returns page details. Use URL Inspection in Search Console for your own pages.
• +word was removed in 2011. Put the word in quotes to match it exactly.
• ~word, the synonym operator, was dropped in 2013.
• daterange: was never officially supported. Use before: and after:.
• inanchor: and allinanchor: are undocumented and match anchor text incompletely. A backlink tool gives better data.

Google dorking and responsible use

"Google dorking", also called Google hacking, means using advanced operators to find pages a normal search wouldn't surface. The term comes from security work, where researchers use it to spot files and pages published by mistake. SEOs and researchers use exactly the same technique every day, and a Google dork generator like this one is simply a faster way to write the syntax.

The templates here stick to SEO and research tasks on purpose. Queries that hunt for passwords, admin logins, vulnerable software or personal data mostly expose other people's mistakes, and acting on the results harms the people whose data leaked. We don't want to make that easier.

Where dorking really pays off is your own site. Search site:yourdomain.com filetype:pdf or site:yourdomain.com inurl:staging to find documents and test pages you didn't mean to publish. If something shouldn't be public, remove it or put it behind a login, then use the Removals tool in Search Console to hide it from results in the meantime. If you come across someone else's exposed data, don't download it; tell the site owner. Many sites list a security contact in a /.well-known/security.txt file.

Limits of site: searches and result counts

A site: search is a quick check, not an index audit. Google's own documentation says it doesn't necessarily return every indexed URL, that large sites shouldn't expect to see all of theirs, and that a bare site: query isn't ranked. site:example.com includes subdomains such as blog.example.com, while site:example.com/blog only matches URLs that start with that path.

The results count, where Google shows it, is a rough estimate, so don't treat it as a page count or compare it between queries. For real coverage of your own site, use the Page indexing report in Google Search Console, which shows how many pages are indexed and why others aren't, and URL Inspection to check a single page.

Operators also change without notice. If a query that used to work starts returning odd results, simplify it and add operators back one at a time to find the one that changed.