How to Search a Specific Domain in Google

Google Search

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by Tim Fisher
Tim Fisher has 30+ years' professional technology support experience. He writes troubleshooting content and is the General Manager of Lifewire.
Updated May 22, 2019

You can use Google to search within a specific domain using the site: syntax. For example, if you are researching a paper on the Jurassic Period, and only want to see results from .edu sites, you can use this query:

site:.edu "Jurassic Period"

This tip also works with .org and other domains:

site:.org pine trees

How to Search a Single Domain

Here's how to limit your searches to one domain:

  1. Click on the Google search field.

  2. Type site: and do not put a space after it.

  3. Type .edu or any other domain, skip a single space and enter the search term. The search term can be several words. If you only want the search to return results including the words in the exact order you type them, enclose the search terms in quotation marks, such as "Jurassic Period."

  4. Click Return or Enter to begin the search.

This search works with any domain. How about government domains? No problem.

site:.gov tax information

Domains can be vast. With this example, you'd get search returns from throughout the .gov domain. If you know of a specific website within the domain, add it. In this case, because you are searching for tax information, it makes sense to limit your search to the IRS.

site:IRS.gov tax information

To do this, enter a website URL, which includes the domain, immediately behind site: (without a space) to limit the search to that specific site. You don't need to use the http:// or https:// part of the URL but no harm is done if you use it.

Now your search results are limited to web pages at IRS.com.