Search engine

Software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a line of results, often referred to as search engine results pages (SERPs). When a user enters a query into a search engine, the engine scans its index of web pages to find those that are relevant to the user’s query. The results are then ranked by relevancy and displayed to the user.
— Wikipedia

I store in this note some search engines information, specific search operators, and search engine shortcuts. These search engine list are configured in my web browser.

Site search in web-browser data

My web browser configured to search sites from various sources, with these keywords (need type keyword in the address bar and then search term)

Browser bookmarks::*, * github

Browser history::^, ^ github

Search Tabs
%, % github, In chrome-based browsers you can also use C-S-a to search tabs and recently closed tabs.

Search engines shortcuts

General purpose search engines

RSS search, search trhoug my RSS feeds (Miniflux)::@rss

Google search, force use. This is useful to avoid search query unnecessary parsing in the address bar.
@g http://example.com

DuckDuckGo, privacy-focused, instant answers, bangs, multiple sources (but not google?).
@d DuckDuckGo !Bangs to search in different websites, also good source for category names.

@yandex, own search index, Russian search results oriented.
@ya яша

Wiki-based search engines, community-driven

• Wikipedia - search in the largest encyclopedia::@w Pi
• Russian Wikipedia::@wr штуццер, "цы пышка"
• Simple English Wikipedia::@sw test
• ArchWiki - Arch Linux Wiki::@a archwiki
• NixWiki - NixOS Wiki::@n nixos
• Fandom - search for fandoms::@f skyrim
• Reddit - search for subreddits::@r unixporn

Science, programming, code and documentation, archive search engines

• WolframAlpha - computational intelligence search engine::@wa Turing machine 2506

• MathWorld - search for math definitions, formulas::@math topology

• Math is Fun- search for math definitions, formulas::@mathf Pi

• GitHub - code search::@gh linux

• SourceGraph - code search::@s linkedin api

• GitLab - code search::@glab alpine linux

• GitHub Gist - code snippets::@gist linux

• Your Github Stars::@star linux

• DockerHub - search for Docker images::@dh alpine linux

• Nix Packages - search for nix packages::@nix filezilla

• StackOverflow - search for programming questions and answers::@so printf

• SuperUser - search for computer questions and answers::@su install linux

• DevDocs - search for programming docs::@dd printf

• Python Docs - search for python docs::@py comprehension

• MSDN - Microsoft developer network docs::@msdn WinMain

• MDN - Mozzila developer network docs::@mdn flexbox

• Web Archive - search for archived pages, need pass URL::@cache linux.org.ru

Maps

• Google Maps - search for places::@m moscow
• OpenStreetMap - search for places::@osm moscow
• Yandex Maps - search for places::@ym moscow

Images, Music and Videos

• Google Images - search for images::@gi роспись

• Yandex Images - search for images::@yi танкетки

• Google Videos - search for videos::@gv stack

• Yandex Videos - search for videos::@yv array

• Yandex Music - search for music, artists::@music bethoven

• Last FM - search for music, artists::@lastfm bethoven

• Music Brainz - search for music, artists::@mb taisha

• YouTube - search for videos::@y rickroll

• Twitch - search for streams::@tv software

• IMDb - search for movies, actors::@imdb titanic

• Kinopoisk - search for movies, actors::@kino matrix

• Rotten Tomatoes - search for movies, actors::@rt taxi driver

Books search engines

• Google Books - search for books::@gb programming
• Google Scholar - search for scientific articles, books::@scholar programming
• BookFinder - search for books::@bf computer science
• Project Gutenberg - search for free books::@booksg Alice's Adventures
• Project NN - search for free books::@anna Alice's Adventures

Translation services

• Yandex Translate - translate text::@tn invictus
• Foldoc Dict - search for definitions, mostly technical::@foldoc Inverse Address Resolution Protocol

Shopping

• eBay - shopping::@eb usb hub
• Amazon - shopping::@am usb hub
• AliExpress - shopping::@ali usb hub
• Wildberries - shopping::@wb usb hub
• Ozon - shopping::@oz usb hub

Google

Launched 1995; 29 years ago (first prototype) 1997; 27 years ago (final launch). Written in Python, C, C++.

PageRank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank web pages in their search engine results.

PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.
— Facts about Google and Competition

Dork cheatsheet (search filters and operators)

Source of these cheatsheet.

Search filters

Filter	Example	Description
allintext	allintext:"keyword"	Searches for occurrences of all the keywords given.
intext	intext:"keyword"	Searches for the occurrences of keywords all at once or one at a time.
inurl	inurl:"keyword"	Searches for a URL matching one of the keywords.
allinurl	allinurl:"keyword"	Searches for a URL matching all the keywords in the query.
intitle	intitle:"keyword"	Searches for occurrences of keywords in title all or one.
allintitle	allintitle:"keyword"	Searches for occurrences of keywords all at a time.
site	site:"www.google.com"	Specifically searches that particular site and lists all the results for that site.
filetype	filetype:"pdf"	Searches for a particular filetype mentioned in the query.
link	link:"keyword"	Searches for external links to pages.
numrange	numrange:321-325	Used to locate specific numbers in your searches.
before/after	... & (before:... after:...)	Used to search within a particular date range, date format is ‘YYYY-MM-DD’.
allinanchor/inanchor	inanchor:rat	This shows sites which have the keyterms in links pointing to them, in order of the most links.
allinpostauthor/inpostauthor	allinpostauthor:"keyword"	Exclusive to blog search, this one picks out blog posts that are written by specific individuals.
related	related:www.google.com	List web pages that are “similar” to a specified web page.
cache	cache:www.google.com	Shows the version of the web page that Google has in its cache.

Operators

Used to separate search terms and define how the search should be carried out.

OR operator searches for a given search term OR an equivalent term.

site:facebook.com | site:twitter.com

AND operator searches for a given search term AND another search term.

site:facebook.com & site:twitter.com

Operators combination.

(site:facebook.com | site:twitter.com) & intext:"login"
(site:facebook.com | site:twitter.com) (intext:"login")

Include results.
This will order results by the number of occurrence of the keyword.

-site:facebook.com +site:facebook.*

Exclude results.

site:facebook.* -site:facebook.com

Synonyms.
Adding a tilde to a search word tells Google that you want it to bring back synonyms for the term as well. For example, entering “~set” will bring back results that include words like “configure”, “collection” and “change” which are all synonyms of “set”. Fun fact: “set” has the most definitions of any word in the dictionary.

~set

Glob pattern (*).
Putting an asterisk in a search tells Google ‘I don’t know what goes here’. Basically, it’s really good for finding half remembered song lyrics or names of things.

site:*.com

Examples

intext:“index of /” linux
Search for the term “index of /” in the body of the SERPs. Usually open http/ftp servers.

Nina Simone intitle:"index.of" "parent directory" "size" "last modified" "description" I Put A Spell On You (mp4|mp3|avi|flac|aac|ape|ogg) -inurl:(jsp|php|html|aspx|htm|cf|shtml|lyrics-realm|mp3-collection) -site:.info
Search for Nina Simone’s album “I Put A Spell On You” in the body of the SERPs. “parent directory” “size” “last modified” “description” are common strings (patterns) found on open http/ftp servers. Filter file types to mp4, mp3, avi, flac, aac, ape, ogg with OR operator. Exclude URL’s with jsp, php, html, aspx, htm, cf, shtml, lyrics-realm, mp3-collection and exclude all the results from the site with the .info TLD.

Bill Gates intitle:"index.of" "parent directory" "size" "last modified" "description" Microsoft (pdf|txt|epub|doc|docx) -inurl:(jsp|php|html|aspx|htm|cf|shtml|ebooks|ebook) -site:.info
Search for Bill Gates documents, “parent directory” “size” “last modified” “description” are common strings (patterns) found on open http/ftp servers. Filter file types to pdf, txt, epub, doc, docx with OR operator. Exclude URL’s with jsp, php, html, aspx, htm, cf, shtml, ebooks, ebook and exclude all the results from the site with the .info TLD.

parent directory Mandriva -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums
Search for open directories (parent directory pattern) with Mandriva text. Exclude results from unnecessary pages (URL’s containing xxx, html, htm, php, shtml, opendivx, md5, md5sums). Instead, Mandriva you can search files (MP3, JPG, etc.) or other Linux distributions. Music albums, movies, software, etc.

filetype:config inurl:web.config inurl:ftp Search for web.config files that contain the word config and are located in ftp directories.

"Windows XP Professional" 94FBR
Search for serial keys for Windows XP Professional (search education purpose only, don’t pirate anything).

ext:(doc | pdf | xls | txt | ps | rtf | odt | sxw | psw | ppt | pps | xml) (intext:confidential salary | intext:"budget approved") inurl:confidential
Find documents (doc, xls, …) that contain the phrase “confidential salary” and “budget approved” in the body of the document. The documents are located in directories or at URL’s named “confidential”.