10 secret Google search tricks

Many users rely upon Google for their Internet searches but few know about the important operators that can really turbo-charge your results. Use them during your next search for family history information or when looking for surnamed and you’ll be surprised at what you find!

cache: include with other keywords in the query and those words are highlighted within the site’s content as cached by Google.
Example: cache:www.nara.gov[/color] archives will show the cached content for The National Archives with the word help highlighted

link: produces results showing links to the specified site.
Example: link:www.ancestry.com displays sites that have links pointing to Ancestry

related: displays sites that are “similar” to a specified site.
Example: related:www.footnote.com lists sites that are similar to Footnote

info: produces information about a site.
Example: info:www.geni.com
will show web page information about Geni

define: provides a definition of the words entered after it.
Example: define:ahnentafel produces definitions for the word from several sources. Note: type an entire phrase and definitions will include all the words in the exact order entered

site: results are restricted to those sites in the given domain.
Example: Germany site:www.cyndislist.com locates sites about Germany within Cyndi’s List. Germany site:com will find pages about Germany within all sites ending in .com

intitle: restrict results to sites containing a specified keyword in the title plus other keywords anywhere in the site.
Example: intitle:African-American ancestry will display sites that mention the word African-American in the title and mention the word ancestry anywhere in the site

allintitle: only see results with all of the query words in the title.
Example: allintitle:Durian ancestry will return only documents that have both Durian and ancestry in the title

inurl: results are restricted to those containing a specified keyword in the url.
Example: inurl:ahnentafel Smith will return sites that mention the word ahnentafel in the url and mention the word Smith anywhere in the rest of the site

allinurl: used with keywords and locate sites with all of the words in the url.
Example: allinurl:Islam genealogy will return only documents that have both Islam and genealogy in the url