Thread: Search Engine Syntax

Hi Guys ...

I am struggling with a little google search syntax. Well actually I don't care which engine one uses but here's my problem.

I want to be able to search for sites containing a specific file in their site. So for example I would like to find any site containing a file called lacabra.txt . How does one go about doing that? Will I need to write a spider for that or is there a simple search command? I will settle for the syntax for finding the specified file in the root. I would like to return links to the sites containing that file ie:

www. yahoo. com
www. digg. com
www. myspace. com

Thanks in advance.

I can only come up with the obvious answer. I'm stumped.

Originally Posted by noppid

I can only come up with the obvious answer. I'm stumped.

Huh? Is there an obvious answer?

I was thinking just search the filename.

Originally Posted by noppid

I was thinking just search the filename.

Nahhh doesn't work.

If site allows SEbots to index the file (Or file name) then this should do the trick - Go to the Advance search option, if you are searching for a specific file format(Like .txt) then choose the format in the file format box and search for file name..
But this will work only if the site allows to index the file or filename..

Originally Posted by The Webmaster

If site allows SEbots to index the file (Or file name) then this should do the trick - Go to the Advance search option, if you are searching for a specific file format(Like .txt) then choose the format in the file format box and search for file name..
But this will work only if the site allows to index the file or filename..

hmmm getting closer ... the search syntax, according to webby's recommendation would "index filetype:htm". Here is a sample for the DP's Coop and only brings back 9 results which is telling me I'm missing something:

ad_network filetype:txt

hmmm i'm guessing I will need a spider.
:eek:

Web searching is first and foremost a matter of words. But what words? And what strategies can we apply to get the most out of those words? There are syntactical tools we can use at search engines to narrow a search to the most relevant pages. Knowing how to specify the words and their relationship to each other is key to making your web searching more effective.
Unfortunately, every search engine uses slightly different rules. To be sure of getting the best results possible from a search engine, it's important to learn the rules of that search engine. The WSG comparison charts are cheat sheets to the rules and the WSG Guides show how these rules can be used to construct search queries.
Spend some time learning the search techniques presented in this section. Also, experiment with your own searches in a subject you know well in order to see how these techiniques and syntax can improve search results and save you time.