Show HN: Qdorks.com – Advanced Google search query composer

Show HN: Qdorks.com – Advanced Google search query composer(qdorks.com)

77 points by adriaanb 2 years ago | 34 comments

Hi HN,

qdorks.com is an advanced Google search query composer I have been working on lately. It makes it super easy to write complex Google search queries and save them for later usage.

Main features:

* Query composer with complex grouping, logical and exclusion operators per clause.

* Share your queries with others so they can easily copy and modify the query.

* No need to register; only when you want to save the queries.

* AI support for PRO users.

* More to come...

I am pretty happy with how it works and would love your feedback! Happy to answer any questions. Thank you!

therein 2 years ago |

This looks nice, no complaints there.

But all of this just for Google to ignore the advanced query parameters and show me something else it thinks I want is unfortunate.

adriaanb 2 years ago | |

It is not always 100% accurate, but still pretty good after a number of different tries.

quickthrower2 2 years ago |

It is a great idea. It feels like a feature missing from Google (and probably impossible for Google to deliver being hampered by material design)

arshxyz 2 years ago | |

Google did make something like this: https://www.google.com/advanced_search

It has a lot of options, even allows you to search ONLY the Text/Title/URL and you can filter by usage right (free for personal/commercial use etc)

Interestingly it was last updated before material design was a thing. Maybe it's nostalgia but I love the design language of Google had before material injected padding everywhere.

sa-code 2 years ago | | |

That's a good point about padding. In trying to make their UIs "cleaner" they've made content impossible to fit unless you're maximized on a 27" screen (which is presumably how they develop)

adaboese 2 years ago |

Related to this, does anyone a good way to search only for articles?

I have a use case that requires that I only surface search results that are articles (news, blog posts, etc) rather than anything else.

The best I've gotten to so far is doing queries such as inurl:blog

adriaanb 2 years ago | |

I have added the source operator for you, so you can search in specific news source. Like: https://qdorks.com/q/RW69pYt754wX

Just add sources and change the keywords to your liking.

kylecazar 2 years ago |

Neat! I am still not sure exactly how Google's 'Country' filter works.

adriaanb 2 years ago | |

Google uses different ways to decide if a webpage belongs to a specific country. Like domain name, search console country setting, server location, language, etc. Not sure if it's always 100% accurate...

kylecazar 2 years ago | | |

Gotcha.. this makes sense. I was hung up on what they even meant by a website belonging to a particular country (as if we're all patriotically running sites on local servers or something).

nhggfu 2 years ago | |

via the gl=[2 letter country code] url parameter, i believe.

(Also useful is the ?pws=0 flag [to remove personalization])

adriaanb 2 years ago | | |

I didn't knew about pws and just added it! Thanks.

For country, I am using cr and language the cl query param.

victorbjorklund 2 years ago |

Doesnt seem to work on safari on iOS. Not responsive design and nothing happens when I press search button. Great idea though!

adriaanb 2 years ago | |

Thanks for letting me know, going to fix this asap!

doctaj 2 years ago | | |

Same for iOS Firefox

fraXis 2 years ago |

Great job! Please add/create a colorful favicon to the site so I can save it in my Google "bookmarks bar" without the name. Right now, it looks like this with a dark theme:

https://imgur.com/a/SNmzISI

adriaanb 2 years ago | |

I just added a new icon, much better. Thanks for the tip!

https://qdorks.com

adriaanb 2 years ago | |

Thanks, and that indeed looks a bit sad. Going on the hunt for something more colourful and let you know!

mistermann 2 years ago |

Some more options between last month and last year would be lovely, one of my main pet peeves about Google search.

adriaanb 2 years ago | |

There are some options for date-ranges, but haven't implemented this yet. Will dive into it and add something more flexible!

akikoo 2 years ago |

Looks like it's missing the verbatim search?

tbs=li:1

erhaetherth 2 years ago |

The Country select box should allow you to type characters when it's focused. The native <select> will do this out of the box.

adriaanb 2 years ago | |

Good catch! I had a look, and it didn't work because of the flags, moving them after the country names fixed it. Thanks!

geraldwhen 2 years ago |

Google is objectively worse than all other search engines. I don’t know why I would want to search Google more.

uneekname 2 years ago | |

I disagree, Google finds what I'm looking for more frequently than any other search engines I've tried. And I say this as someone who is looking to use Google less!

adriaanb 2 years ago | |

The idea is to write one query and be able to view results on the major search engines. I have to investigate the supported advanced search feature for each first...

gumballindie 2 years ago | |

What is the alternative? Chat gpt and clones are rather wrong most of the time.

Terretta 2 years ago | | |

kagi.com which is subscription instead of advertising so they understand who the customer is and what product they are selling to whom

// to be clear, google understands what product they are selling to whom as well -- it's just not search to you

gerwim 2 years ago | | |

I use Phind[0]. It's great addition to the regular search engine.

[0]: https://phind.com

geraldwhen 2 years ago | | |

Yandex is my go-to for harder to find items, and other than that I use DDG. Google never gives good results.