Google Dorking is about using slightly advanced search expressions (like regular expressions) to pin-pointedly search for what you’re looking for rather than searching for a needle in a haystack of search results.
As is, Google Dorking is not illegal, it is a suite offered by Google itself for pinpointed search. But, if you use Google Dorking for any illegal activity, then Google Dorking will be considered as a crime. So, it is important to be aware of it so that it is used consciously.
The specific search operators used in Google Dorking techniques are:
- “site:” to search within a specific website.
For example, if you want to get all search results for the term “coding” from only the UnicMinds website.
- “inurl:” will return you all the pages that have the keyword in the URL. In the below snapshot, you see that all the resulting page URLs have the word “login” in them.
- “intext:” will return all the pages with the keyword in the text of the page.
For example, in the snapshot below, it results in all the pages from the website unicminds.com with the text of the page having the keyword “trial”.
- “filetype:” would return results of a specific filetype. For example, `filetype:pdf` would return PDF files.
- “link:” used to find pages that link to a specific URL. For example, `link:example.com` would find pages linking to example.com.
- “intitle:” used to search for a keyword in the title of a webpage.
Google Dorking can uncover some key information and vulnerabilities of websites which may not be intentionally made public by the administrator or owner. These can cause privacy violations and can be used for malicious purposes by someone else indirectly. So, while Google Dorking is legal, it can have indirect legal consequences.
Ofcourse, Google Dorking can have legal implications if used for an illegal purpose by you or through you. Therefore, it shouldn’t be used without a clear understanding of the legal and ethical implications as it can unknowingly violate privacy laws or Google’s terms of service. Therefore, using these techniques responsibly and ethically is vital and it is important to be guided on this process.
Hope this is useful, thank you.
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