Google Search URL Parameters – Query String AnatomyGoogle search query string is the perfect example of “ugly” dynamic URL that has lots of bizarre parameters – but this is just the first impression.
In reality, Google’s search query URL path is the gold mine of information: digging deeper into it can provide you with lots of new options and opportunities – which could improve your search experience, tracking and analytics capabilities, etc.
This post is an attempt to list all those geeky parameters in one place – and moreover, make them easy to understand for everyone (regardless of background knowledge), clear to categorize and useful for various purposes.
Most Useful Google Search URL Parameters:
You will love those! These are the parameters that anyone can find useful for daily searching:
| URL parameter | Explanation | Bookmarklet (Should work both on FireFox and Google Chrome) | |
| pws=0 | Turns off Google personalization of search results | De-personalize | |
| num= (1… 100) | Controls how many search results are displayed per page | num=100 | Changes a Google search to show 100 results per page. |
| num=10 | Changes a Google search to show 10 results per page. | ||
| num=1 | Changes a Google search to show 1 result per page. | ||
| filter=0 | Eliminates the “omitted results” or “similar results” filter, and allows all results to show in the SERP. | filter=0 | Removes the limit of 2 URLs per site. |
| Gf=0 | Turns Google site clustering filter off and changes number of results to 100 | ||
Bookmarklets curtesy of:
Note: to use any of the bookmarklets, just drag it to your browse bookmarks toolbar. If you think you want to play with all of them, consider creating a separate folder to save space:
Google’s Navigational URL Parameters:
| URL parameter | Explanation | ||
| btnI=1 | Google “I’m feeling lucky” search: takes you straight to the top Google search result.
e.g. http://google.com/search?btnI=1&q=pillow |
||
| gfns=1 | Takes you to the first (organic) result for that term (works mostly for branded, navigational search queries) -> “Browse by Name” is a cross between Google Search and I’m Feeling Lucky
e.g. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=mcdonalds VERSUS http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=pillow (Note: seems also to work for all queries that return Wikipedia on top: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=disease http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=seo http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=shakespeare ) |
||
*Here’s also an instruction on how to set “Browse by Name” search as default for all popular browsers – this could allow you to navigate straight to the target page if the result is obvious (provided you like the idea, of course).*
Google “Advanced Search” URL Parameters
You are very unlikely to use any of the following parameters because using the corresponding advanced search operator or option is just much easier. But in case you were wondering:
| URL Parameter | Advanced search option / Advanced search operator | Explanation |
| as_epq | “” | Returns exact match results |
| as_oq | OR | Returns one of the search terms |
| as_eq | - | Returns results that do NOT include the term |
| tbs=qdr: (d / w / m / y) | Sidebar search options (Anytime) | Returns results which are (one day / week / month / year) old |
| tbs=rltm:1 | Returns “Most recent” results (real-time search) | |
| as_filetype | filetype: | Returns results that have the specified extension |
| as_occt (=url / =title / =body / =links) | allinurl / allintitle / allintext / allinanchor | Prompts Google to only search within URL / page title / backlinks |
| as_sitesearch | site: | Restricts results to the specified domain or subdomain |
| as_rq | related: | Returns pages relevant to the URL |
| as_lq | link: | Returns pages linking to the URL |
| as_rights | Advanced search options | Restricts search results to files/pages that have certain rights. |
| safe=active | Turns on safe search | |
| newwindow=1 | Google search settings | Opens results in a new window |
Google Suggest Tracking URL Parameters
I am sure many analytics geeks may think of dozens of ways to use the following parameters for some wicked search referral tracking:
| Group | URL parameter | Explanation |
| Google Suggest Tracking | aq=f | The user did not choose the query from the Google Suggest box, but the user has Google Suggest box enabled. |
| aq=n | (n stands for a number) The user clicked a corresponding Google Suggest result to navigate to the search query string | |
| oq= | shows which were the words/letters at which point the user stopped typing in the search box and instead went to suggest box and choose the entry. | |
| Google SERPs navigation behavior tracking | sa=X | The user “searched within search” or clicked “More results from” below a result or used “related searches” |
| sa=2 | The user search again using the field at the bottom of search results (after scrolling through all the initial search results) | |
| sa=N | The user clicked through the results paging links at the bottom of the SERPs | |
| Source of the query: | sourceid |
|
| Search Within Results | swrnum | The number of results the initial query returned |
| as_q | When searching within results, the query is added as_q | |
| Universal search | oi | “Revisions_inline” = related searches |
| “News_group” = group of results from Google News | ||
| “Video_result_group” = group of results from Google Video | ||
| “video_result” = link on a thumbnail of a video | ||
| “Blogsearch_group” = set of results from Google Blog Search | ||
| resnum | Number of a result within the group |
Google Language and Localization URL Parameters
| URL Parameter | Explanation | Available values |
| hl | The interface language | List of all languages and abbreviations |
| lr | Restricts search results to the chosen language | Language Filtering |
| cr=country.. | Limits the search results to pages/sites from the certain location (use the country abbreviations in place for ..). | Country Codes |
| gl=country.. | Displays the results you would find in a search conducted from that geographic location (can be inaccurate as you are still querying Google from another location). | Country Codes |
| gr | Limits the search results to pages/sites from the certain region | Province Codes |
| gcs | Limits the search results to pages/sites from the certain (comes ONLY in combination with gr= parameter) | City Codes or use this search engine to define to find both the country and city code to use |
| gpc | Limits the search results to pages/sites from the area code (only works with gl=countryUS) |
Additional reading: Google URL encoding.
Do you want search and social tutorials and cheat sheets delivered to you regularly? Then be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed, like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter!
Nice roundup. FYI, you need to add as_qdr=all to the URL if you have Google instant otherwise the num= parameter won’t work.
Nice one! Thanks!
This is some thing i am looking for form such a long time… Thanks for such an Awesome resource Ann.
Great to hear that you liked it!
really great information – never knew all this – it would be great if some one comes out with a utility using all these parameters in a more easy way to search google
Great to hear the post looks useful! Yes, I too hope there will appear a tool that would utilize all of these parameters.
The standardized parameters really help to make apps for Google Search Easily
Thanks for the information, now I know this:)
This is a great post and worth bookmarking.
Thanks, that is really a great article, even tho some of the parameters seem to be well known others are very interesting.
keep up the grat work
This is some great info. I will see what I can do using some advanced filters to see what type of data I can pull with these.
There are a few parameters such as source= & cd= that are placed on about 15% of the links. These can be captured in a separate analytics profile together to tell you the keyword phrase, exact position of click and whether it came from News, Video, Web etc… I will have to write up a post on how to implement it. I have seen similar advanced filters, but none that capture all three and display them together.
If you write the post, don’t forget to link to it here – we’d love to check it out!
I find some parameters that I did not know before, hmmm very interesting ones as well. Thank you very much for this information
Great I was able to share something new! Thanks for stopping by!
thank you for sharing that info, it all makes sense now :)
Thank you for this nice overview. I have bookmarked it and will definitely start to use some of these parameters =)
The as_occt parameter is used for allintext,allinurl etc depening onl given in as_occt=body or as_occt=url.
What is the parameter to negate ? (i.e) -allintext, -allinurl.
Great collection and EXPLANATION, thanks! That helped out a lot.
Some other resources worth sharing:
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/the-ultimate-guide-to-the-google-search-parameters
http://blogs-optimieren.de/1106/google-suggest-suchvorschlaege-massive-auswirkungen/
Cheers,
Oliver
Inspirational post Ann :)), I have blogged about this precisely on Localization parameters http://www.thatsseo.com/2010/10/google-search-localization-url-parameters-explained/ however I have included the “gm” parameter which I feel that you had missed out.
That’s an awesome link, Raghavan! Thanks for sharing!
Welcome! Have been following your articles in Blue Glass, really informative. Great going :))
Check also cd parameter on referal. It handles SERPs position. You can check http://www.isaacsunyer.com/almacenar-posicione-serps-analytics/ (spanish) to store it on analytics