Dig into any domain – “site:”

There are many situations where you’ll be looking to explore a particular web site.

That’s where the “site:” operator comes in.

It’s simple to use.  Just put the domain name immediately after the colon. For example, if I wanted to see every web page that Google had indexed from Quick Sprout, I would search query:

site:quicksprout.com

Every single result in those title tags will be from Quick Sprout.

However, you can take things a step further and only retrieve search term results from a specific folder within the search engines. So, if you wanted to see all of my blog posts from 2013, you could search:

site:quicksprout.com/2013/

On top of folders, you can also look specifically at subdomains.

For example, if you wanted to see blog posts on the web site Video Fruit, which are hosted on a subdomain, you could search query:

site:blog.videofruit.com

The real power comes from using the operator with other webmaster tools as well.

Having a list of a web site’s blog post is much more useful than just staring at pages of search term results sending you into a rabbit hole of content and anchor texts.

There are many free scraper tools out there, like Google Parser. I’d recommend using Scrapebox, if you’re going to be doing this seriously. Online scrapers are typically very limited in the results that they provide.

Either way, enter your search query in the exact same way:

When you click the button to submit, you will end up with a list of URLs and anchor texts from the search results, which you could then copy into excel or Google docs.

Possible use #1 – Find writers: The “site:” operator is one that all SEOs need on a regular basis. One specific reason that you might want to use it is to find writers to either hire or build relationships with.

Most niches have at least one site like Boost Blog Traffic. It’s a high-traffic site that consists mainly of a ton of guest posts by some of the best writers in the internet marketing community.

But, a large authority web site like this covers a ton of different topics. You’re most likely interested in one specific topic.

What you can do is use the site operator to narrow down results from the search engines to that particular site and then tack a niche key phrase or keyword on to the end.

For example, if I was starting up a new content marketing blog, I could type into the search box:

site:boostblogtraffic.com content marketing

Remember what these top search term results are: They are the most relevant and authoritative results for content marketing, which makes them the best places to start.

I could then go visit each article, check the title tags and anchor texts, and note the author and contact information.

Possible use #2 – Find guest post locations: I often write about the power of guest posts.

One of the best ways that you can quickly create a list of the best blogs that accept guest posts is to use the site operator and minus signs.

Remember, when we excluded Quick Sprout before? Let’s exclude my other blog as well:

neil patel -site:quicksprout.com -site:neilpatel.com

Now we’re left with a mixture of social profiles, a few mentions, anchor texts, title tags, and all of my guest posts on sites like Entrepreneur.com and Forbes.com.

You could also tack on “guest post” to the end of the search terms to remove social profiles from the results, but it could result in search engines missing a few posts.

Possible use #3 – Find pictures: There are many reasons you might want to find the pictures that a particular site uses.

Maybe you want to study successful competitors.  Maybe you’re trying to find someone’s infographics or maybe you’re looking for pictures for a new post.

Whatever the reason, the “site:” operator can be very handy.

It works the exact same in the image search query as it does in the text search. In fact, many of the operators in this article work for both.

If you were interested in infographics on Quick Sprout, you could go to Google’s image search and type in:

site:quicksprout.com infographic

You’ll see all of my infographics at your convenience, instead of having to troll through the site, which would take hours.