Google Search Filetype Operator For Site Commands Broken; Filetype Does Work

Feb 28, 2024 - 7:21 am 0 by
Filed Under Google

Robot Sifting Google Documents

There are reports that the filetype operator within Google Search has stopped working, it has not. It doesn't work when you add additional search operators to it, like a site command to see a specific file type on a specific type. Google has said it is likely a bug and they are working on bringing it back.

If you search for PDF files on this specific site using the command [site:seroundtable.com filetype:pdf] you currently get zero results:

Google Filetype Command Site Not Working

But in general, if you are trying to find PDF files or other filetypes for a specific query, that still works just fine. For example; [google quality raters guidelines filetype:pdf]:

Google Filetype Command Working General

Update: It might be fixed, it works for [site:cnn.com filetype:pdf]:

Filetype Cnn

Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, said on X, "This is probably a bug. I'm passing it on to our team to investigate."

Oh, Google dropped the cache link a month ago.

So this is a very specific bug in the list of so many Google bugs this month (this is just February):

Forum discussion at X.

Update: Google fixed the issue shortly after I posted about it and confirmed it was fixed later:

 

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