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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteGoogle Search modifiers are operators and symbols you add to a query to refine what you’re looking for. Use quotation marks for an exact phrase, site: to scope results to a website, a minus sign to exclude a term, before: or after: to limit by date, and filetype: to look for a particular file format. Keep an operator’s value attached to it: write site:example.com, not site: example.com.
Common Google Search modifiers and when to use them
Choose a modifier based on the part of your search you want to refine. The examples below show query syntax; they do not guarantee what a live search will return.
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| Goal | Query example | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Find an exact phrase | "climate adaptation" |
Quotation marks request an exact word or phrase match. |
| Search within a website | site:example.com climate adaptation |
site: scopes results to a domain, URL, or URL prefix. |
| Exclude an unwanted term | jaguar speed -car |
A minus sign immediately before a term excludes it. |
| Limit by date | astronomy discovery after:2026/03/10 before:2026/03/15 |
after: and before: set date limits. |
| Look for a file format | climate adaptation filetype:pdf |
filetype: narrows a search to a file format. |
Google documents these operators in its Search help. Use the operator directly alongside the relevant term or value, without inserting a space after a colon.
How to search a specific website
Put site: before the domain or URL prefix, then add your search terms. For example, site:example.com climate adaptation asks Google for results about climate adaptation scoped to that site. You can also use a more specific URL prefix to narrow the scope.
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A site: search is a refinement tool, not a complete inventory: Google says it may not show every indexed URL. Used alone, site: does not rank a site’s pages, and its results may look arbitrary. For a site owner checking a particular page’s indexing status, Google says Search Console’s URL Inspection tool is more reliable than search operators. See Google Search Central’s documentation on search operators, last updated December 10, 2025.
How to exclude a word or request an exact phrase
Exclude a term
Place a minus sign immediately before the word you want to remove, as in jaguar speed -car. This can help when a word has multiple meanings and one is irrelevant to your search.
Request an exact phrase
Put the phrase in quotation marks, such as "climate adaptation". This asks Google to look for that exact wording. It is a useful way to focus a query, but search results should not be treated as a guarantee that every page shown contains every query word literally; Google may also relate a result to a query through related terms or links. See Google’s guidance on search operators and its explanation of how results relate to searches.
How to narrow results by date or file type
Use after: and before: to request a date range, and filetype: followed by a format such as pdf to look for that kind of file. For example, astronomy discovery after:2026/03/10 before:2026/03/15 requests results within date limits, while climate adaptation filetype:pdf focuses on PDFs. Google documents the syntax, but a modifier does not guarantee an exhaustive set of results.
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Use Advanced Search without memorizing operators
If you prefer a form to query syntax, open Google Advanced Search. Depending on the page, its fields let you enter exact words or phrases, include or remove terms, and filter by language, region, or file type. Google notes that available fields can vary across Advanced Search pages; the form is a graphical alternative to constructing a query with modifiers.
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