You can restrict your search to Word documents, Excel documents, PDF files, or PowerPoint files by adding filetype:doc, filetype:xls, filetype:pdf, or filetype:ppt, respectively, to your search query.

Want a great PowerPoint presentation on email marketing that you can repurpose for a meeting? Simply query Google for email marketing filetype:ppt. Need a marketing plan template? Since the template would most likely be a Word document, cut through the web page clutter with a search of marketing plan template filetype:doc. (Don’t link to your own marketing plans if you don’t want them showing up in Google’s index.)

In fact, Google allows any extension to be entered in conjunction with the filetype: operator, including htm, txt, php, asp, jsp, swf, etc. Google then matches on your desired extension after the filename in the URL. Note that there is no space after the colon when using this operator. You can use ext: instead of filetype: —they do the same thing.

You can search within a site or a domain by adding the site: operator followed by a site’s domain name to your query. For example, you could search for email marketing but restrict your search to only pages within the MarketingProfs site with a query of: email marketing site:www.marketingprofs.com.

You can also add a subdirectory to the end of the domain in a site: query. For example email marketing site:http://www.marketingprofs.com/tls

To conduct a comprehensive search of all of the associated subdomains of a domain, omit the www and instead specify only the main domain. For example, a search for site:yahoo.com would encompass not just www.yahoo.com, but also movies.yahoo.com, travel.yahoo.com, personals.yahoo.com, etc. The site: search operator works even when just the domain extension (like .com, .org, .gov, or .co.uk) is specified. Thus, you can restrict your search to .com sites with site:com, to .gov sites with site:gov, or to .co.uk with site:co.uk.

Combining Boolean logic with the site: operator will allow you to search within multiple sites simultaneously. For instance, email marketing (site:marketingprofs.com | site:marketingsherpa.com | site:marketingpower.com) searches the three sites simultaneously. The site: operator can be specified by itself without other search words to get a list of all pages indexed, such as site:www.marketingprofs.com. Again, note that there is no space after the colon when using this operator.

Use this approach to simultaneously search competitor sites for keywords of particular relevance (e.g., related products you want to monitor). Then either create a bookmark to easily monitor the index or create a Google Alert (to be explored later in this book) to receive an email any time the index changes.

The site: operator works outside of ordinary Web search—it also works with Google Images, Google Product Search, and Google News.

Use the inurl: operator to restrict the search results to pages that contain a particular word in the Web address.

This can be especially useful if you want Google to display all the pages it has found within a particular directory on a particular site, such as inurl:ftp site:http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu or all the pages with a particular script name, such as inurl:ToolPage site:http://www.vfinance.com. Again, there is no space after the colon when using this operator.

This operator is similar in function to the inurl: operator, but is used for finding multiple words in the Web address. It eliminates the need to keep repeating inurl: in front of every word you want to search for in the URL.

For instance, allinurl: china exporting is an equivalent and more concise form of the query inurl:china inurl:exporting to find pages that contain the words china and exporting anywhere in the URL, including the filename, directory names, extension, or domain. There IS a space after the colon when using the allinurl: operator.

Searches for a word in the main body text. This is used in a similar fashion to inurl:. For instance, if you wanted to find only pages that referenced Stephen Hawking and relativity, you might search for stephen hawking intext:relativity.

Searches for multiple words within the body text of indexed pages. This is used in a similar fashion to allinurl:.

Use the intitle: operator (such as intitle:marketing) to look for documents where your specified word or phrase matches in the page title. This is the hyperlinked text (usually blue) in the Google search result, which also appears in your browser’s topmost bar.

If you want to find Microsoft Word documents in which the document title (located within Properties under the File menu in Word) includes the phrase marketing plan, you would use the query intitle:“marketing plan” filetype:doc. Follow the intitle: operator with a word or a phrase in quotes, without a space after the colon.

This works like intitle: but searches for multiple words in the title. For instance, use allintitle: channel conflict online retail to search for documents that contain all four of those words in the title. Note that there is a space after the colon when using this operator.

The inanchor: operator will restrict your search to pages where the underlined text of inbound links matches your search word. For example, if you wanted to search for merchandising but confine your search primarily to home pages, merchandising inanchor:home would do the trick, since most sites link to their own home pages using the link text of “Home.”

Follow the inanchor: operator with a word or a phrase in quotes, without a space after the colon.

This works like inanchor: but searches for multiple words in the link text. For example, the query web metrics allinanchor: download trial would invoke a search for pages relating to web metrics that have the words download and trial in the link text.

Note that there is a space after the colon when using this operator.

The daterange: operator restricts the search results to pages added or updated within the specified date range. Unfortunately, it only accepts Julian dates, which makes it less user-friendly than it could be. You can find Gregorian-to-Julian date converters online, e.g. here: http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar

You’ll usually find it easier just to do your search first without a date range, then use the custom date range options in the “More search tools” area of the result page.

related: queries show pages that are similar to the specified Web page. Follow this operator with a Web address, such as related:http://www.marketingprofs.com, and you would find pages that are related to the MarketingProfs home page. This is identical to the Similar link in the bottom left of the Preview pane of each search result.

An info: query lets you know whether the specified page is known by Google, and it provides the title and a snippet (if available), a link to the page, a link to a cached version of the page (see below for an explanation of this), and a link to view pages that link to the specified page.

Supply a Web address after this operator, such as info:http://www.marketingprofs.com.

The link: operator returns a sampling of pages (i.e., a small subset of the total) that link to the specified Web page. Follow this operator with a Web address, such as link:http://www.marketingprofs.com to find pages that link to the MarketingProfs home page.

The cache: operator provides a snapshot view of a web page as it looked when Googlebot last visited the page. Follow this operator with a Web address, such as cache:http://www.marketingprofs.com to view the page that Google has cached. Note that Googlebot must have downloaded the page in order for this to work.

This is a useful operator for quickly obtaining several definitions from various online glossaries. Curious about the definition of “tipping point”? Simply type define: tipping point into Google.

Wondering how your competitor is performing on Wall Street? Enter this operator followed by a ticker symbol to retrieve financial information, including latest stock quotes from Google Finance. Note that in most circumstances this operator is optional. Google figures out if the query is a ticker symbol pretty well. An exception to this is dell versus stocks:dell.

Google also offers an area code look-up. For example, enter 313 and Google returns the geographic location and map corresponding to that area code.

Queries in the format of a street address automatically return street maps. Enter a full street address, or a ZIP code, or a city and state. For example, 123 east main street, madison, wi or 53703 or madison, wi are all valid map-based Google searches.

Enter any valid mathematical expression, and Google’s calculator function will interpret it for you. It will even do currency and measurement conversions for you, such as 100 dollars in euros, or 8 ounces in cups. Learn more about what other syntax is valid at the Google calculator page at http://www.google.com/help/calculator.html

Enter a valid package tracking ID into Google and you can also track packages. Or, supply an airline and flight number to Google, and it will return flight times. Google will even return information about a car’s history if you query it with the VIN (vehicle information number).

In fact, Google will spit back all sorts of interesting information when it recognizes a particular number format, such as a patent number, FAA airplane registration number, UPC Codes, or FCC Equipment ID.

Google will display the local time and date for any location on Earth—all you have to do is tell it where. This takes into account time zone and daylight savings calculations according to the location’s rules. You can pass a city and country name, or a postal code.

Much like the time feature, Google can display a weather forecast for a given location, specified by a city and country, or a postal code. The top result is a four-day basic weather forecast.

Google has information on show times from most local theaters in any given location. When you click on the first result in a movies search, the modified result page will sort shows by movie, genre, day, time, and theater.

If you search for flights Philadelphia, you will get a table of outbound flights to Philadelphia’s largest airport (PHL) from a wide array of origins. You can switch this around and find out what flights are outbound from PHL by searching for flights from Philadelphia instead. Lastly, you can specify both an origin and a destination, and if non-stop flights exist between those two points, Google will print the airlines, flight numbers, and departure and arrival times.