Google offers a little-known advanced search command that can make your Google searches easier.
While the same thing can be done using Google’s tools menu, it takes six clicks to complete Advanced search operators One-click to complete.
Advanced search operators
Advanced search operators (also known as search commands) are ways to refine your search for more specific results.
For example, if you want to search results From a specific website, you can use Place: search operator.
Examples of site search operators:
apples site:example.com
The above search will return all pages on the example.com website that contain the word “apple”.
Now, here’s how to do the same search, but this time we’re looking for results for “apple” instead of from example.com.
To do this, we perform the same search, but with a minus sign (-).
Example of site exclusion search operator:
apple -site:example.com
before: and after: search operators
Google’s advanced search operator launched in 2019 is called forward: and back: Order.
What these search commands do is make it easier to find web pages published during a specific time period.
These types of time-based searches help users find web pages published during a specific time period.
There is already a way to accomplish this time-based task by using the advanced search tools available on the Google homepage.
However, using these tools requires six clicks to complete a time-based search.
The old way was to first click the tools button located below and to the right of the search box:
Screenshot by author, May 2022Then, the next step is to click the “Anytime” link.
Screenshot by author, May 2022The third step is to enter a custom date range in the pop-up calendar box.
Screenshot by author, May 2022Searching for documents published within a specific time frame requires a lot of typing and clicking.
A new way to complete time-based searches
The new way to search is similar to using other advanced search operators, such as the “site:” search operator example above.
The commands before and after the search are as follows:
before: after:
Here is an example of how to use the before and after search commands:
spider man before:2005 spider man after:2005 spider man after:2005-01-01 before:2019-31-12
notes: If you use a full date, you must search in year/month/day format.
Previous Spider-Man Examples: 2005
Example of multiple calendar datesMeaning before and after the search operator
The advanced search operator “before:2019” means before 01/01/2019.
Here’s a screenshot of a search using the “Before:” advanced search operator:
Google search screenshot, May 2022Notice that the above search results are dated November 16, 2018? This is because Google returns pages older than January 1, 2019.
Here’s the same search, but limited to results from before 2018:
Google search screenshot, May 2022Similar to previous searches, what Google does with the “before:2018” search operator is to return pages published before January 1, 2018.
How dashes and slashes work
The cool thing is that dashes (-) and slashes (/) in dates also work.
So for this search:
avengers endgame after:2019/03/01 before:2019/03/05
You get this search result:
Google search screenshot, May 2022Time-based search operators are flexible with numbers
Another useful feature is that when entering a date, it doesn’t matter if a single digit has a zero or not.
this:
07
It works the same as this:
7
Are the dates sometimes wrong?
This release date The search results page for is not always displayed.
This was the case when the pre- and post-search orders were announced in 2019, and is still the case today at the time of this article’s publication.
Also, sometimes the search results don’t seem to match.
For example, for a spiderman search like this:
spider man after:2005-01-01 before:2019-31-12
Search results should be no later than December 31, 2019.
However, if you look at the example below, there is a 2021 result. Is the search operator broken?
Wrong search results?
Screenshot by author, May 2022The search results above are not broken. The above search results on the IMDB website appear to be from 2021, but the page was originally published in 2019.
2019 IMDB Spider-Man page Archive.org cache screenshotSo while the current webpage seems to say it’s released in 2021, the actual release date is late 2019 (as in Archive.org saved cache), when IMDB created the webpage for the (then) untitled movie, which ended up being called Spider-Man No Way Home.
Before and after work in Google News
Date-based search operators also work Google News.
This should make it easier to research news stories during a specific date.
E.g, WordPress has been updated to version 6.0 (named Arturo) in late May 2022.
If I search Google News for WordPress Arturo before 2022, Google News returns results with WordPress and Arturo appearing on the news site. But there is no information about WordPress 6.0 Arturo update.
However, if I search for WordPress Arturo for dates after March 2022, I get news search results for WordPress updates.
A Google News search looks like this:
wordpress arturo after:2022-03-01
Returns the correct search results:
Before and after dates are considered estimates
In announcing the search operator, Google’s Danny Sullivan said that Google may not get it right because sometimes it’s hard to parse the actual launch date.
Therefore, it was said at the time that the publication date of search results using date-based search operators should be understood as more of an estimate.
But as you can see with a little digging, some seemingly wrong things in the date range are actually correct. It’s just that the article was updated later.
Save time with before and after search operators
I have to admit that I have forgotten the before and after search operators. I haven’t seen anyone talking about these search operators since they were announced.
Still, searching with date restrictions is a useful way to search, and it’s a good idea to re-familiarize yourself with these search operators.
Citation: read Tweets by SearchLiaison Before and after announcing search operators.
More resources:
Featured image: Golden Dayz/Shutterstock
