List of advanced search tips
Main operators
AND ..... OR (must be written in capital letters)
Trump AND China - gives results that only contain both “Trump” and “China”
Trump OR China - gives results that contain either “Trump” or “China”
Can combine:
Trump AND Venezuela OR China -- will give you results containing "Trump+Venezuela" or "Trump+China" or "Trump+China+Venezuela"
Symbols of advanced searches:
() - Parentheses - groups multiple terms or search operators together
- Minus sign -- excludes things
Ex: Donald Trump -Melania -- will get you results containing Donald Trump but NOT Melania
* - Asterisk (wildcard) -- tells the search engine that there is unknown text
ex -- "Saint * Street" Boston -- tells a search engine to look for streets names "Saint something" in Boston
.. -- two dots -- signals there is a range between numbers
ex -- Ford Taurus $1000..$3000 -- tells a search engine to look for pages with text “Ford Taurus” and a price range between $1000 and $3000
ex -- murder victims 2000..2005 -- tells a search engine to look for pages with the text “murder victims” and years between 2000 and 2005
site:
ex -- site:afp.com croissants -- will search the afp website for mentions of croissants
ex -- site:afp.com “fresh croissants on Fridays” -- will search the afp.com website for pages containng that exact phrase
filetype:
ex -- site:afp.com filetype:pdf -- will search the afp website for pdf files
ex -- site:cia.gov filetype:pdf confidential -- will search the cia website for pdf files marked confidential
inurl:
ex -- inurl:bananahammock -- searches for pages that include “bananahammock” in the url
allinrul:
ex -- allinurl:bananahammock gross -- searches for “bannanahammock” and “gross”
related:
ex -- related:bicycles.com -- searches for websites that have similar content as bicycles.com
prefer:
ex -- prefer:roses -- fine-tunes a search by giving preference to word “roses”
cache:
ex -- cache:paris.com -- shows your the latest cached version of the paris.com website
intitle:
ex -- intitle:iphone -- finds pages with “iphone” in the title
allintitle:
ex -- allintitle:iphone junk -- finds pages with both “iphone” and “junk” in the title
intext:
ex -- intext:iphone -- finds pages with "iphone" in the text
allintext:
ex -- allintext:iphone apple -- finds pages with ALL of the specified words in the content, so in this case both "iphone" and "apple"
AROUND (x)-- finds pages with two words or phrases within X words of each other
ex -- pathetic AROUND(4) loser -- will find pages where “pathetic” and “loser” are within four words of each other
Tips for Twitter/Tweetdeck searches
a more exhaustive list is available here and in tweetdeck under 'settings/search tips:
from:@EmmanuelMacron - find tweets only from Emmanuel Macron
from: @EmmanuelMacron Brexit - tweets from Emmanuel Macron containing Brexit (if you use one word, you don’t need quotation marks, but include them if you search for two words -- so from:@EmmanuelMacron “Donald Trump” will get you tweets from Emmanuel Macron containing phrase "Donald Trump")
from:@EmmanuelMacron “Brexit rocks” -- tweets from Emmanuel Macron containing the exact phrase “Brexit rocks”
to:EmmanuelMacron -- tweets sent in reply to the EmmanuelMacron twitter acct
list:EmmanuelMacron/restos-favoris -- tweets sent from a twitter account in EmmanuelMacron list “restos-favoris”
pathetic loser -- tweets containing both the word “pathetic” and “loser” but not necessarily together
“pathetic loser” - tweets containing the exact phrase “pathetic loser”
#DonaldTrump - tweets containing the hashtag
@DonaldTrump - tweets mentioning the account DonaldTrump
Filter - includes certain things
ex -- Taco filter:media -- tweets that mention “taco” and that have an image or video
ex -- Taco -filter:media -- tweets that mention “taco” but not those that include images or video
Filter:safe -- shows only tweets not marked as potentially sensitive
ex -- Pedophilia filter:safe -- shows tweets containing pedophilia, with those marked as potentially sensitive removed
ex -- Pedophilia filter:retweets -- shows tweets containing pedophilia that have been retweeted
ex -- Pedophilia -filter:retweets -- shows tweets containing pedophilia, but removes those that have been retweeted
ex -- Pedophilia filter:links -- contains pedophilia and a link to a url
ex -- cats filter:periscope -- contains cats and periscope videos (so videos that have been broadcast live)
ex -- cats filter:native_video -- contains “cats” and uploaded video (so not necessarily live)
ex -- from:DonaldTrump filter:media -filter:images -- will get you tweets from @DonaldTrump with media except images
Geolocation:
geocode,XXmi(km)
So if you want to find something within 5 miles of Aspen, Colorado:
geocode,“39.191629,-106.819818,5mi”
“39.191629, -106.819818
Dates and engagement -- easiest to conduct these searches within the "advanced search" on Twitter or in Tweetdeck
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