by Rebecca Mikulin

Created on: July 30, 2010

Advanced operators are often seen as merely a way to narrow down search results when looking for specific information. While this is true, advanced operators are a powerful tool for much more than just consumer use, they’re also a great tool for search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing. The information available through these operators can also be obtained through browser add-ons and various software programs, but if you don’t want to have to download anything or just want your information quickly without having to open any additional programs, then the search engine’s advanced operators can deliver what you want from your search window.

You can access some available advanced operators by clicking the “advanced search” option in any search engine, though there are easy tags you can put in a regular search query that will give you the same information without taking that extra step. Moreover, knowing tags that are relevant to what you’re trying to accomplish can save a lot of time and headache trying to find where any particular search engine put that function. For the purpose of search engine optimization (SEO), there are a few tags that may come in useful on a regular basis, especially if you’re trying to determine why your page isn’t ranking the way you expect after doing on-page keyword optimization.

Find Backlinks

Backlinks can be extremely valuable both in boosting PageRank and in directing good, targeted traffic to your site. However, some sites have all nofollow links, which means that they won’t help out your rank at all, while links on high-ranking sites can really help to boost your own. In addition, some bookmarking sites will only keep a link for a specific amount of time and then remove it from their database. Wouldn’t it be nice to know where all the backlinks to your site are? Simply type link:www.yoururl.com into the regular search box to see all existing links to that page. The number of search results will tell you just how many pages are linked to yours, and scanning down the list will reveal which are links within your own domain, which are links you’ve placed yourself, and which are links that others have placed to your site. If you don’t mind browser add-ons, use a simple add-on such as Donofollow or something similar to see which of those links are dofollow and which are nofollow. In addition, each domain can be entered into a rank checker, which may give some

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