Google is ubiquitous, it’s the search engine most of us turn to first, when we want fast results. But, it has a few flaws. One of those is a seeming inability to search hits by date. So, what if I told you that there’s a simple string that can bring up an extra dialog option when you search in Google that let’s you search for results in the last 24 hours, past week, past month, past 2 months, past 3 months, past 6 months, past year, and anytime?

This is what a standard search for sciencetext looks like:

Now, take a look at this version of the SERPs. Spot the difference? Just in case it’s not obvious I highlighted the addition:

The obvious question is how do you get this extra search display option? Well, carry out your intended search and look at the browser address bar, you’ll see something like this with maybe a few extra bits and pieces associated with the browser you’re using, whether you’re in safe search mode, your language etc:

http://www.google.com/search?&q=sciencetext

To obtain results with a time-limited menu, simply add the following code “&as_qdr=d” without the quotes to the end of that address bar string and hit Enter to make Google search again:

http://www.google.com/search?&q=sciencetext&as_qdr=d

You could with a little browser tweaking make this the default search format so that the time filter appears without you having to add the code to the address and re-run the search. Of course, those in the know have been searching Google with date filtering for years using GooFresh at ResearchBuzz.