/
On this page
Search Engine OSINT
Search engines are typically the first step in any OSINT investigation.
Major Search Engines
| Engine | Best for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| General OSINT, people, businesses | Most comprehensive for US/European content | |
| DuckDuckGo | Privacy-focused searches | Less precise than Google |
| Bing | Alternative results | Good secondary source |
| Yandex | Image search | Russian-based, excellent for finding similar images |
| Baidu | Asian content | Chinese-based, limited Western content |
Always check multiple search engines – they return different results.
Filtering
(work on Google, but might work on other search engines too)
Results are shown based on these (regular results, images, news, etc.).
Operators
| Operator | Function | Example |
|---|---|---|
" " | Exact phrase search | "John Smith" |
AND | Both terms required | john AND smith |
OR | Either term | john OR jonathan |
* | Wildcard | the * mentor |
- | Exclude term | john -doe |
site: | Search specific domain | site:reddit.com |
filetype: | Specific file format | filetype:pdf |
inurl: | Word in URL | inurl:password |
intext: | Word in page text | intext:password |
intitle: | Word in page title | intitle:admin |
Time-Based Searching
Use Google’s Tools menu to filter by time:
- Past hour
- Past 24 hours
- Past week
- Custom range
Google Advanced Search
It’s an alternative to operators: google.com/advanced_search. It’s a fill-in form