Google offers a few query commands, also called operators, that can be used to analyze a Web site–and about the competition for your selected keyword phrases. The following is a brief list of the most useful query operators. Just substitute your domain name for "mydomain.com" or your search keywords for "green" and "widgets". Don’t be afraid to try them. They are easy to use.

site:mydomain.com Lists all the pages in a site that Google has indexed and included in its database. This should only include pages from within the same domain name. Other domain names found in this list can indicate problems, such as improper redirections or Web page hijacking.

link:www.mydomain.com Displays the list of all backlinks (inbound links) to a Web page. This example lists all the Web pages that link to the home page. Google currently displays a random sampling of links to a Web page with no apparent criteria for which pages it
displays. The list may also include pages within a site that link to the page being tested.

allinanchor:green widgets Returns pages that have pages linked to them using inbound links with the keywords "green" and "widgets" in the hyperlink text. If your site is not in the top rankings when using this operator to test for a chosen keyword or phrase, you need to obtain more links to the site with the keyword phrase in the link text.

allinurl:green widgets Returns pages in which the words "green" and "widgets" appear in the page URL. Useful to see how well pages rank based upon keywords in the URL. The value of using this operator may be meaningless today. Google places only a minimal value, if any, on keywords in a URL.

allintitle:green widgets Returns the Web pages in Google’s index that contains the keywords "green" and "widgets" in the HTML title tag. Good for checking to see how Web pages rank based upon the keywords in the HTML title tag.

allintext:green widgets Returns pages in which the words quot;green" and "widgets" appear in the text of the page. Useful to see how well pages rank based upon keywords in the page content.

Google has a web page that includes these and additional operators, plus instructions that explain how to use these query commands. Check it out –> Google Advanced Operators.