Google says that search operators are “symbols or words in your search to make your search results more precise.” They significantly ease the process of getting accurate results in no time. They also have a broad scope of getting utilized from content research to technical SEO audits to almost anything. These search operators are basically special characters and commands that when directly put into the Google search box aid the process of gaining precision in search results while doing different types of research. ( To know more, refer to Methods and Types of Legal Research for Writing Research Papers) Google can return standard relevant results except in special cases (like the ‘in’ operator). It’s fast, it’s short, and it lasts in the memory. 

Google Search Operators 

Given below are some highly useful and working operators that you should make an effort to getting used to for better efficiency and time management:  

• “search term”   

This forces an exact match search and is used while looking for single terms, to simplify results for vague searches, or to remove synonyms. Example: If “Elon Mask” is searched, the results will mandatorily contain the phrase ‘Elon Musk’. 

• OR  

It returns results linked to X or Y, or both when searching for ‘X or Y’. Also, it is possible to use the pipe (|) operator in place of ‘OR.’ Examples: Law OR CLAT / law| CLAT. Now the results would mandatorily have either law or the word CLAT.

• AND  

When ‘X and Y’ are searched for, only results linked to both X and Y are returned. Note: For daily searches, it really doesn’t make a difference, as Google defaults to “AND” anyway. However, when combined with other operators, it’s very efficient and handy. 

Example: law AND CLAT.   

• –  

It is basically a negative tool used to remove a phrase or word. Referring to our example, any pages returned will be related to law but not CLAT. Example: law – CLAT 

• *  

This serves as a wildcard and has the capability of matching any word or expression. Example: law*CLAT. 

• ( )  

To regulate the execution of the search, this one group’s multiple words or search operators. 

Example: (law OR CLAT) NLU.

• define:  

This will reveal a word’s meaning in a card-like outcome in the Search results like in Google’s built-in dictionary. Example: define: Plaintiff 

• cache:  

The most recent cached version of the indexed web page is returned by using this one. Example: cache: memopundits.com 

• site:  

This operator limits search results to those from a specific website. Example: site: memopundits.com 

• related:  

Used to find sites related to a given domain. Example: related: memopundits.com 

• intitle:  

This one will pick the pages with a certain word or words present in the title. Used to find pages with a certain word (or words) in the title. For example: searching ‘intitle: law’ would show all the results which contain the word ‘law’ in their title including words such as lawyers. 

• allintitle:  

This one is similar to “intitle,” except only results are returned that include all the words in the title tag which are listed. For example: searching ‘allintitle: law’ would show all the results which specifically contain the word ‘law’ only in their title.

• inurl:  

Used to locate pages in the URL containing a certain word (or words). Any results containing ‘law’ in the URL will be obtained in this example. Example: inurl: law  

• allinurl:  

This one is similar to “inurl,” but only results containing all of the specific words in the URL will be returned. Example: allinurl: law CLAT 

• intext:  

It is used somewhere within the web to find pages containing a certain word (or words). Any results containing the word ‘rule’ in the page content are returned for this example. Example: intext: law 

• allintext:  

Similar to ‘intext,’ but it will only return results that include all the stated words somewhere on the document. Example: allintext: law CLAT 

• AROUND(X)  

This one is used to locate pages containing two words or phrases inside each other’s X words, which is a search tool for proximity. For this case, the words ‘law’ and ‘CLAT’ must not be separated by more than four words. Example: law AROUND(4) CLAT. 

Manupatra Search Operators 

Now bringing the focus to solely on the students of law, listed below are some useful pointers so as to get used to Manupatra Search Operators for better research and organization: 

• Phrase query 

This one is similar to the above-discussed google search operator “search item”. 

• ANDing/ORing 

This once again is mentioned above in the AND and OR google operators. 

• Negative Keyword (Exclusion) 

The aforementioned – google operator is similar to this one. 

• Punctuations 

To obtain a specific result, it is advised to get rid of all the punctuations. 

• Spell Checking 

The search will always suggest the best matching words regardless of you committing spelling mistakes. 

• Unordered Proximity (Operator `/’)   

This one is used to specify the distance between words in any order. Example: “tort law”/3 

• Ordered Proximity (Operator `@’)   

This one is used to specify the distance between words in the same order. Example: “tort law”@3 

• Contextual Search Para 

This operator matches only those documents in which all the keywords are stated in the query of the same paragraph. Example: “tort law”/p 

• Contextual Search Sentence   

This matches the documents that include all the keywords of the query within the same sentence. Example: “tort law”/s 

We hope these above-mentioned operators will prove to be useful in your future filled with research and exploration!