Secret Shortcuts for Searching the Web’s Resources
According to Internet Live Statistics, Google processes over 40,000 search queries every second on average, translating to over 3.5 billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide. However, most people don’t realize that Google can be used for much more than simple keyword queries to look up information. Google can function as an address search tool, a telephone book, a package tracker, a VIN number lookup, and more. This article provides an overview of key Google search commands you can use to search more efficiently. Also, in the world of Open Source Intelligence, these special commands are becoming increasingly known as Google Dorks.
List of Google Search Commands, Shortcuts, and Dorks
Many private investigators offer missing persons locate services to their clients. Investigators use various methods to find a person, such as paid database searches, scouring social network accounts, phone calls to relatives, friends, and associates, and search engine queries. Sometimes, a missing person case can be solved with a well-planned and well-executed series of search engine queries.
The following Search Commands allow you to enter various parameters directly into the Google Search Box to conduct specific searches.
U.S. Street Address and Phone Number Search
Use the following procedure to find U.S. street addresses and phone numbers. You’ll see publicly listed phone numbers and addresses at the top of results pages for searches containing specific keywords. To find listings for a residence, type any of the following combinations into the search box:
- first name (or first initial), last name, city (the state is optional)
- first name (or first initial), last name, state
- first name (or first initial), last name, area code
- first name (or first initial), last name, zip code
- phone number, including area code
- last name, city, state
- last name, zip code
Review the results to determine if the person you are seeking is included. Since many names are similar, you may need to review the details and sort by geographic area, gender, age, and other factors.
This particular shortcut will save you a significant amount of time as it can be used to search the web on a personal computer or laptop or via the search app on a mobile device.
Look up Business Information
To find listings for a business, type the following into the Google search box:
- Business name, city, and state
- Business name, zip code
- Business name, phone number (with area code)
Review the results to determine if the particular business is listed.
Search Package Tracking Numbers for UPS, FedEx, and the United States Postal Service
Whether you’re a private detective or not, this capability will be useful. Quickly track a package shipped via the United Postal Service directly from the search page. Just enter the tracking number and press enter: 1Z9999W999999999.
Similarly, you can look up packages shipped with FedEx tracking numbers. Just enter the tracking code in the field in the format 999999999999. As expected, you can also look up the United States Postal Service (USPS) tracking numbers to find packages. Use the number format 9999 9999 9999 9999 9999 99.
Learn more about how to track a package.
Vehicle ID (VIN) numbers
To search for a vehicle identification number, most commonly known as a VIN number, simply enter the number into the search field in the format AAAAA999A9AA99999.
Learn more about VIN numbers.
Universal Product Codes (UPC)
For example, enter the number 073333531084 in the Google search box to search for a UPC code.
Telephone area codes
Use the following to do an area code search:
- example search: “650”
Patent numbers
Just enter the word “patent” and the number to look up a patent.
- example search: “patent 5123123”
- Remember to put the word “patent” before your patent number
FAA airplane registration numbers
Use the following command to search for FAA airplane registration numbers:
- example search: “n199ua”
- An airplane’s FAA registration number is typically printed on its tail
FCC equipment IDs
Use this helpful search command to look up FCC equipment ID numbers:
- An example search: “fcc B4Z-34009-PIR”
- Remember to put the word “fcc” before the equipment ID
- Hit enter or click the search icon
Other Google Search Commands and Shortcuts
- inurl: followed by a particular string of characters returns results with that specific sequence of characters in the URL. For example, inurl:amazon would return any website with the word Amazon in the URL. This is useful if you need to locate all the websites, social media accounts, etc., a company uses. In the above example, you’ll find Amazon’s main websites, Twitter, Facebook, and others.
- intext: followed by a word or phrase returns files with the word or phrase anywhere in the text.
- Search for a specific phrase: Put your search query in quotations to search for an exact phrase. For example, “private investigator events in California”. Google will search for specific words in this specific order. A standard search without quotes will look for pages that contain those keywords anywhere within the page, which results in far more results to sift through.
- If you need to search the content of a particular website, and that site either doesn’t have a search feature, or isn’t that good, use the site: feature. To use this feature, enter site:websitename.com and then follow that with your keywords. For example, site:einvestigator.com licensing.
- info: (find information about a page about a website or particular page) for example, info:www.einvestigator.com
- Find the definition of a word: Type definition:word in the search field. In most cases, the definition will be included in the search results, and you won’t be required to click on a particular website to read the definition.
- filetype: This command limits the search to a specific file type, such as DOC, PDF, XLS, TXT, and more. For example, filtype:doc will return only Word documents in the search results.
- and: private investigator: searches for the words private and investigator.
- or: private or investigator: looks for the word private or investigator
- related:example.com – Finds websites similar to the specified domain.
- define:word – Provides definitions of the given word.
- site:edu / site:gov: – Limits results to educational or government websites.
- link:keyword – Shows pages that link to the specified URL.
- cache:URL – Displays the Google cache version of a webpage.
- weather:location – Retrieves current weather conditions for a specific location.
Use Multiple Engines
While this article focuses on Google’s secret search commands, we recommend using multiple search engines such as Bing and Yahoo to get access to various results. Due to the differences in search algorithms between engines, the ranking of the results will vary. This may be helpful to a private detective as it will expose you to different websites that may contain the answers you need.
Additional Search Tools
- Google Advanced Search Page – The advanced search page gives you more control over the search results you see. The advanced search page allows you to write queries and filter the data to ensure the most relevant search results.
- Google Search Operators – Add these symbols or words to your search terms in the Google search box to gain more control over the results that you see
- Advanced Image Search – Helpful guidance for narrowing your search for images.
If you have any questions about this article or any of the Google Dorks and advanced search commands, please post a comment below.