# Google search question. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 4, 2017, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724 "2017-04-04T12:59:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/1 "2017-04-04T12:59:36Z")
I am incredibly frustrated trying to search for things, by stale dated information, from years ago. Is there a simple way to filter google search that will produce only current results, say anything from 2016 and later? I’ve looked through some of their filtering tools but none seem to be what I want. Anyone else have this problem? Or know of a solution? (Just adding 2017 to your question doesn’t help in the slightest!) Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/2 "2017-04-04T13:16:50Z")
I do it by performing the search I want, then when the results come up, there is a “Tools” menu. Clicking that brings up a timeframe dropdown (which defaults to “Any Time”). Then you can select “Past Year”. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/3 "2017-04-04T13:44:56Z")
There is a “tbs” parameter that you can add to [search](https://stenevang.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/google-advanced-power-search-url-request-parameters/). For example: [ul] [li]Search for trout: [trout[/li][li]Search - Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?q=trout%5B/li%5D%5Bli%5DSearch) for trout in the last hour: [https://www.google.com/search?q=trout\*\*\*&tbs=qdr:h\*\*\*](https://www.google.com/search?q=trout&tbs=qdr:h)[/li][li]Search for trout in the last year: [https://www.google.com/search?q=trout\*\*\*&tbs=qdr:y\*\*\*](https://www.google.com/search?q=trout&tbs=qdr:y)[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/4 "2017-04-04T13:45:43Z")
Whereabouts is the tools menu? I can’t see it. (iPad mini, 5yrs old) ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/5 "2017-04-04T13:49:05Z")
But I CAN see search tools on the links **leamcim** provided! Wha? ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/6 "2017-04-04T13:57:31Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Whereabouts is the tools menu? I can’t see it. > > (iPad mini, 5yrs old) On my phone, I have to drag the menu over (touch where it says “All” and “Images”, and drag to the left) to be able to see it. It will be the rightmost choice, “Search Tools”. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/7 "2017-04-04T14:14:36Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > But I CAN see search tools on the links **leamcim** provided! Wha? I think that specifying the tbs parameter automatically sets the toolbar to the “open” state on the results page automatically. (My guess is that “tbs” stands for “tool bar state”) ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/8 "2017-04-04T16:30:52Z")
Could you spell out, (as for a simpleton), exactly how I, ‘specify the tbs parameter’, pretty please? ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/9 "2017-04-04T17:56:05Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Could you spell out, (as for a simpleton), exactly how I, ‘specify the tbs parameter’, pretty please? Ok. To start out with, the way normal people do a google search for “trout” is: [ol] [li]Go to [https://www.google.com/[/li][li]Type](https://www.google.com/%5B/li%5D%5Bli%5DType) “trout” into the text box.[/li][li]Hit the “Google Search” button.[/li][/ol] But we are not normal people, so we want to don’t want to mess around with text boxes and buttons, so instead we go to the URL: [https://www.google.com/search?q=trout](https://www.google.com/search?q=trout) This url searches for “trout” as if we had done all of the steps without all the fru fru. The part of URL after the “?” is called the [query string](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_string). In this case it is “q=trout”, which means “set the q parameter to ‘trout’”. “q” is the name of the “what to search for” parameter. So the URL is a one-step search for “trout”. If we go to the URL: [https://www.google.com/search?q=trout&tbs=qdr:y](https://www.google.com/search?q=trout&tbs=qdr:y) The query string is: “q=trout&tbs=qdr:y”. The character “&” is a separator, so the query string has two parts “q=trout”, which as before says “search for trout”, and “tbs=qdr:y”, which apparently means “only show results for the past year”. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/10 "2017-04-04T19:27:36Z")
Thank you so very much for your most patient instruction! I appreciate it enormously, my searching will surely be much less frustrating in future! ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/11 "2017-04-04T19:55:06Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > “tbs=qdr:y”, which apparently means “only show results for the past year”. qdr = query date range, I’ll be bound ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/12 "2017-04-04T20:18:06Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Thank you so very much for your most patient instruction! > > I appreciate it enormously, my searching will surely be much less frustrating in future! Yeah, life is easier when you can decode these things. Query strings are everywhere. For example, the URL at the top of this very page right now is: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=20114155](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=20114155) where the query string “do=newreply&p=20114155” means “do the ‘new reply’ action, using post 20114155 (i.e. your post)”. ---
**Author:** ![from\_a\_to\_z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5fc32e/32.png) [@from\_a\_to\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/from_a_to_z)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/13 "2017-04-05T03:22:31Z")
A useful summary is at [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=638051](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=638051), “HOWTO: Search the SDMB using Google”. ---
**Author:** ![FallingLeaves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/54ee81/32.png) [@FallingLeaves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallingLeaves)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2017, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-question/783724/14 "2017-04-09T03:07:37Z")
You can also just start at the advanced search page: [https://www.google.com/advanced\_search](https://www.google.com/advanced_search)