You already know how to perform a Google search for specific keywords or phrases, but what happens when you want to search for the same keyword or phrase on a specific domain? You can scroll through all the search results looking for the domain you are focusing on, or you can use a neat SEO trick in Google (and most other search engines).
See what Google has indexed on a particular domain
To limit your query to a specific domain or to see what Google has indexed on a particular site, you can use the site: command.
At a bare minimum, the site: command needs a domain name to limit the results. Searching Google for: site:seths.blog will return all indexed results for Seth Godin’s blog in Google.
Searching a domain for a keyword or phrase
Now, if you want to take it a step further and search Seth Godin’s blog for a specific phrase or keyword, you’ll include a query string after the site command. If the phrase needs to be exactly as you type it, you’ll need to wrap it in double quotes. Otherwise, Google will do its thing and search for the words individually and also as a complete phrase.
Searching Google for site:seths.blog "purple" returns the following results:
Searching a domain for links
You can also search for links on a particular site. Instead of including a search phrase, you can type a domain name or a super specific link.
Searching Google for site:seths.blog "akimbo.link" returns the following results:
Similarly, searching for “twitter.com” links on Seth’s Blog is performed using site:seths.blog "twitter.com"
Conclusion
Google makes it easy to search a specific domain for keywords, phrases, and links by using the site:www.domain.com "phrase or query" format. This method of searching comes in handy when you need to search a specific website for specific information. It’s a great way to find backlinks or to research topics for SEO.