A web search engine is a software application which crawls the web to index it and provides the information based on the user search query. Some search engines go beyond that and also extract information from various open databases. Usually the search engines provide real-time results based upon the backend crawling and data analysis algorithm they use. The results of a search engine are usually represented in the form of URLs with an abstract.
Apart from usual web search engines, some search engines also index data from various forums, and other closed portals (require login). Some search engines also collect search results from various different search engines and provide it in a single interface.Google is one of the most widely used search engines and is the starting point for web exploration for most of us.
Google is now worth billions and has its own place within the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb, but it took two men with a big dream to turn a small idea into a reality that has made a significant contribution to how the world uses the internet. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were both PhD candidates when they met in 1996 at Stanford and came up with the concept for a search engine that they were going to name BackRub,Google is now worth billions and has its own place within the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb, but it took two men with a big dream to turn a small idea into a reality that has made a significant contribution to how the world uses the internet. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were both PhD candidates when they met in 1996 at Stanford and came up with the concept for a search engine that they were going to name BackRub, on the 14th September 1997 Google.com was officially registered as a domain name.
Google serves some 80 percent of all search queries on the Internet, making it by far the most popular search engine. Its popularity is due not only to excellent search effectiveness, but also extensive querying capabilities. Google makes it possible to reach not only the publicly available information resources, but also gives access to some of the most confidential information that should never have been revealed.
Here is a summary of the most important and most useful query operators along with their descriptions.The right query can yield some quite remarkable results.
Apart from usual web search engines, some search engines also index data from various forums, and other closed portals (require login). Some search engines also collect search results from various different search engines and provide it in a single interface.Google is one of the most widely used search engines and is the starting point for web exploration for most of us.
Google is now worth billions and has its own place within the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb, but it took two men with a big dream to turn a small idea into a reality that has made a significant contribution to how the world uses the internet. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were both PhD candidates when they met in 1996 at Stanford and came up with the concept for a search engine that they were going to name BackRub,Google is now worth billions and has its own place within the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb, but it took two men with a big dream to turn a small idea into a reality that has made a significant contribution to how the world uses the internet. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were both PhD candidates when they met in 1996 at Stanford and came up with the concept for a search engine that they were going to name BackRub, on the 14th September 1997 Google.com was officially registered as a domain name.
Google serves some 80 percent of all search queries on the Internet, making it by far the most popular search engine. Its popularity is due not only to excellent search effectiveness, but also extensive querying capabilities. Google makes it possible to reach not only the publicly available information resources, but also gives access to some of the most confidential information that should never have been revealed.
Here is a summary of the most important and most useful query operators along with their descriptions.The right query can yield some quite remarkable results.
site:
Restricts results to sites within the specified domain
intitle
Restricts results to documents whose title contains the specified phrase
inurl
Restricts results to sites whose URL contains the specified phrase
filetype
Restricts results to documents of the specified type
ext
Restricts results to documents of the specified type
numrange
Restricts results to documents containing a number from the specified range
link
Restricts results to sites containing links to the specified location
anchor
Restricts results to sites containing links with the specified phrase in their descriptions
allintext
Restricts results to documents containing the specified phrase in the text, but not in the title, link descriptions or URLs
+
specifies that a phrase should occur frequently in results
-
specifies that a phrase must not occur in results
" "
delimiters for entire search phrases (not single words)
.
wildcard for a single character
*
wildcard for a single word
|
logical OR
info:
The info operator provides information what Google has on a specific domain. Links to different types of information are present in the results, such as cache, similar websites, etc.
This is not all, sometimes Google also shows relevant information related to global events as and when they happen; for example, Cricket World Cup.
The operators we discussed are certainly very useful for anyone who needs to find out some information on the web, but the InfoSec community has certainly taken it to next level. These simple and innocent operators we just discussed are widely used in the cyber security industry to find and demonstrate how without even touching the target system, critical and compromising information can be retrieved. This technique of using Google search engine operators to find such information is termed as "Google Hacking."
The operators we discussed are certainly very useful for anyone who needs to find out some information on the web, but the InfoSec community has certainly taken it to next level. These simple and innocent operators we just discussed are widely used in the cyber security industry to find and demonstrate how without even touching the target system, critical and compromising information can be retrieved. This technique of using Google search engine operators to find such information is termed as "Google Hacking."
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