A site: query is a search operator that allows you to request search results from
the particular domain, URL, or URL prefix specified in the operator. For example:
site: examples | |
|---|---|
site:example.com | Show results only from the example.com domain (www.example.comand recipes.example.com). |
site:https://www.example.com/ramen tsukemen | Shows results for pages that contain URLs that start withhttps://www.example.com/ramen and are relevant to the term tsukemen. |
The site: search operator is available on all Google Search properties.
Uses for site owners
A site: query can help in a few ways with debugging a site. A few examples:
site: examples | |
|---|---|
site:example.com | Returns a list of indexed and serving URLs. |
site:https://example.com/recipes/tsukemen.html | May help you understand whether a specific URL is indexed and served. |
site:example.com viagra casino | Helps with identifying and monitoring spam problems on your site. |
site:https://example.com/ lemon | Shows which URLs on the site can show up for the term “lemon”. |
site:https://example.com/recipes/tsukemen.html lemon | Shows whether the specific URL is indexed for the term “lemon”. |
Limitations
The site: operator was designed primarily for search users and so it has some
restrictions that site owners might find limiting. Specifically:
- The
site:operator doesn’t necessarily return all the URLs that are indexed
under the prefix specified in the query. Keep this in mind if you want to use the
site:operator for tasks like identifying how many URLs are indexed and serving
under a prefix. - A
site:operator without a query (for examplesite:example.com)
doesn’t rank the results. It will generally show the shortest URL for the prefix at the top,
but otherwise the results are relatively random.
Alien Road
How we apply this
The site: operator gives an approximation, not a count. We use it to spot patterns, such as a section missing entirely, and we take the real numbers from Search Console.
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