Are Google's Allintitle, Allinanchor and Allinurl Operators Buggy?

Oct 3, 2007 - 7:53 am 5 by

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion about Google's allintitle, allinanchor and allinurl operators. Basically, these are special operators you can use when search in Google. For example, if you want to find pages that match a keyword phrase but limit it to the title of the page, you search for [allintitle:keyword phrase here]. If you want to limit the search to anchor text, use allinanchor and if you want to limit your search by keywords in the URL, use allinurl.

Some members are noticing a weird occurrence with these operators. Specifically when using quotes. Typically, if you use quotes in your searches, Google would return a smaller set of results, when compared to not using quotes in your search. Reportedly in these cases of using these operators, it is now working the other way, which seems wrong.

Example, I was looking for . Running allintitle without quotes would return 689 results, allinanchor would return 450, allinurl would return 780. Something rather weird as we are talking about fairly common terms.

However, running exactly the same search WITH quotes would would return 25,000 results for allintitle, 16,800 for allinanchor and 8,900 for allinurl.

Looking at the bolded KWs you can tell that the searches WITHOUT quotes are broader because there are more terms highlighted. For instance, [bold]Widget Rental [/bold] at [bold]Widgets [/bold] Direct UK (no quotes) vs. [bold]Widget Rental [/bold] at Widgets Direct UK (with quotes)

If I understand how these commands work (I hope I do after all these years working in the industry) not using quotes should mean a broader query and higher number of results. Something supported by the fact that there are more terms highlighted. However, that does not seem to be the case.

Some members relate this problem to what we covered yesterday with Google's Index Page Counts Like a "Rollercoaster"?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Helpful Content Recoveries With Core Update, AI Mode Expands, Hidden Ad Terms & Fewer Ad Clicks

Jul 11, 2025 - 8:01 am
Google Maps

Google Local & Business Profiles Drops June 25th - Reporting Glitch?

Jul 11, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google

Google Tests Zoom Effect In On Images Within Search Results

Jul 11, 2025 - 7:41 am
Bing Search

Bing Search Image Box Tests Explore Image & Visual Search Buttons

Jul 11, 2025 - 7:31 am
Bing Search

Microsoft Bing Tests Delivery Truck Icon In Search Ads

Jul 11, 2025 - 7:21 am
Bing Search

Bing Local Pack With See More Button At Top

Jul 11, 2025 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: AdSense Publishers: How Many Channels do you Use?