Use these search shortcuts to turn your favorite search engine into a high-powered SEO research tool!

Google

Search for sites linking to a URL: [note: Google does not list all linking sites. For a more fun list, sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and view links to your site within the tool.]

link:http://www.yourseoplan.com try it now

Search for pages with a certain phrase in their HTML Page Title:

allintitle:”Handy Search Shortcuts” try it now

Search for related sites:

related:http://www.yourseoplan.com try it now

Search for all pages indexed within a website:

site:http://www.yourseoplan.com try it now

Search for all pages with a certain word in their URL:

inurl:search try it now

See more Google Search Shortcuts on Cyberwyre.

Yahoo!

Search for sites linking to a URL: [note: this search and the site: search below will be redirected out of standard Yahoo! search results and into Yahoo!'s Site Explorer]

link:http://www.yourseoplan.com try it now

Search for pages with a certain phrase in their HTML Page Title:

allintitle:”Handy Search Shortcuts” try it now

Search for all pages indexed within a website:

site:www.yourseoplan.com try it now

Or you can do this the “old-fashioned” way and stay within standard Yahoo! search results rather than going to Yahoo! Site Explorer: go to Yahoo! advanced search, enter your domain as yourdomain.com in the box next to “only search in this domain/site:” and enter a word that you know you have on every page of your site into the search query box (we use “SEO”). try it now

See more Yahoo! Search Shortcuts on Yahoo

Bing

Search for pages linking to a URL:

site:http://www.yourseoplan.com try it now

Search for outbound links from an entire domain:

linkfromdomain:http://www.yourseoplan.com try it now

Search for pages with certain words in their HTML Page Title:

intitle:”Handy Search Shortcuts” try it now

Ask

Although Ask has a relatively robust menu of advanced searches, it has some restrictions that make it slightly less handy for the average SEO trying to learn more about their own site. Notably, there are no search options for linking sites, and you have to include a term along with the advanced search query. So, for example, you can’t just search for all the indexed pages on your website — you have to search for all the indexed pages on your website that contain a specific term . (Here, we use the word “seo” because we know that every page has that word on it.) Here is an example:

Search for pages indexed within a site:

site:www.yourseoplan.com seo try it now

Search for pages with a certain phrase in their URL:

inurl:”yourseoplan” try it now

Search for pages with a certain phrase in their title:

intitle:”your seo plan ” try it now

Search for pages containing a certain phrase that have been updated within the last week (the “last updated” searches available on the other big search engines start at 3 months):

“seo” last:week try it now