1

Does Google have public documentation about the parameters of a Google Search - the parameters visible in the URL string when a query is submitted into the search bar at google.com, such as q, uact, sclient, etc?

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

It's hard to prove a negative, but the answer seems to be no; AFAIK, Google publishes everything under the google.com domain, and searching for site:google.com uact sclient does not return meaningful results.

There are some rather old blog posts (from 2008 and before) and some of the parameters may still work:

or you could have a look at open source software or libraries which have tried to parse the URL, like this one which isn't very rich in documentation.

Improve this answer
1
0

Google hasn't documented all URL parameters on the help centers of Google (websearch), Google Search Console Tools, and Google Search Center Central

Most documented parameters are intended to interact with web browser settings that end-users and professionals could customize. A group of these professionals used to be referred to as webmasters, another group is software developers. There is a lot user created content about officially and not documented parameters.

Some parameters are not documented on the help center, and Googlers and the community have documented Google Developers articles, most of them are related to user-entered input parameters or parameters that might be used when crafting URLs, i.e, to integrate Google into a website search feature.

On the Stack Exchange network, it might be possible to find questions about them here, on Webmasters Stack Exchange, Stack Overflow, Super Users and probably on others sites too.

Asking a generative AI tool like ChatGPT might be helpful to get insights about possibilities, but be careful about making conclusions without cross-referencing the responses, as it's well known that this tool could hallucinate.

Tools like unfurl, mentioned in the recent answer to another question, help to analyze URLs. It would be best to look at their documentation to learn about the features and limitations. It is worth mentioning that a few days ago, there was a new release on September 27, 2023. This tool has an online front-end (web application): https://dfir.blog/unfurl/.

References

Related

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.